We're one step closer to a meaty cyberpunk future as scientists create a 'living computer' using 80,000 mouse brain cells
Scientists in the US managed to put together a living computer by cultivating over 80,000 mouse stem cells(opens in new tab) (via IT Home)(opens in new tab). One day, the hope is to have a robot that uses living muscle tissue to sense and process information about its environment.
Researchers at the University of Illinois have used tens of thousands of living mouse brain cells to build a computer that can recognize patterns of light and electricity. The team presented their findings at the American Institute of Physics in the form of a computer about the size of your palm.
The scientists grew the computer, made of 80,000 reprogrammed mouse stem cells, and placed them between optical fibers on a grid of electrodes. The cells were kept alive in an incubator during the experiment, and the team trained the mouse brain-computer by flashing ten different patterns of electrical pulses repeatedly for an hour, then recorded and analyzed the signals sent by the neurons after it had rested for 30 minutes.
Just how good was it at analyzing the data? Well, its F1 score (a metric commonly used for neural networks) didn't start off too high, in all honesty. It's measured on a scale of 0 to 1, with 1 being perfect recognition of patterns. And initially it couldn't score above 0.6 due to random spikes of electricity coming from the neurons.
Congratulations, you weird mouse brain-bot!
But Andrew Dou and his team at the University of Illinois figured out a mix of chemicals and electronic impulses that could apparently calm such randomness. The end result was a rather spectacular score of 0.98 on its best run. So, congratulations, you weird mouse brain-bot!
Why are scientists experimenting with this sort of computing? So-called reservoir
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