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In the near future, computers and processors might not have to be manufactured in a factory, they could be grown as cell samples in a lab. The researchers received a large grant to try to literally develop a neural network in a laboratory.
New research from Lehigh University will try to create a computer based on the functioning of the brain and the human nervous system – a neural network – using living cells, and then program it to learn tasks and execute them.
According to a report published by the University, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has decided to support this study and has thus spent more than 500 000 dollars to develop this computer. This is part of their Understanding the Brain and Brain initiative.
"Recent developments in optogenetics, patterned optical stimulation, and high-speed optical sensing allow the simultaneous stimulation and recording of thousands of living neurons," said Xiaochen Gao, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California. Lehigh University.
"… Scientists already know that connected living biological neurons naturally have the ability to perform calculations and learn," he said. To date, the team will build an experimental testbed that will allow researchers to stimulate and detect activity in a living neural network, and we will develop algorithms to train it.
From now on, a report on Futurism indicates that there is little information on how researchers will "develop" this computer. Living cells will be used, but what they are exactly, or how they plan to do, remains a mystery. What they said, however, is that optogenetics will be used. This is a way to control cells and program them using light. The team is apparently working on a way to bring together hybrid brains and organic brains, to find out how they are going to do that, the report continues.
One of the concerns of growing computers from petri dishes, points out the report, could it, as an organic, be aware?
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