Chris Cantell Discusses Science: Robot with biological brain by Martina Janeckova

On Thursday August 14, 2008 scientists from the University of Reading in England released a statement that they have created a robot with a biological brain made of rat neurons. The robot is called Gordon and his brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generates by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot. When the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by electrodes and in response the brain's output drives the robot's wheels. Kevin Warwick of the School of Systems Engineering said that "This new research is tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorizes its experiences." The researchers plan to get the robot to learn, by applying different signals as it moves into different positions. They hope their work will lead to better understanding of illnesses like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stroke and brain injuries. "One of the fundamental questions that scientists are facing today is how we link the activity of individual neurons with the complex behaviors that we see in whole organisms," said Ben Whalley, a pharmacist at the university and member of the team that built Gordon. "This project gives us a really unique opportunity to look at something which may exhibit complex behaviors, but still remain closely tied to the activity of individual neurons. Hopefully we can use that to go some of the way to answer some of these very fundamental questions."

by Martina Janeckova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Beata Biskova