Scientists trained brain cells in a bowl to play the computer game Pong

The classic 1970s arcade game Pong is so simple it seems anyone can play it — including brain cells in a lab.

Yes, you read it right. Scientists in Australia have taught neurons grown in a Petri dish how to play a simple video game.

The researchers say these “mini-brains” can sense and respond to their environment, and using them for drug testing or computing could have far-reaching implications for health, technology and society as a whole.

“Cultures show the ability to self-organize activities in a goal-oriented manner,” according to their study published in the journal on Wednesday neuron.

brain cells in a dish

The start-up leading the research, Cortical Labs, is dedicated to building a new generation of biological computer chips using human neurons.

“From worms to flies to humans, neurons are the starting point for general intelligence,” Brett Kagan, chief scientific officer, said in a statement.

“So the question was, can we interact with neurons to use this inherent intelligence?”

Kagan and his colleagues harvested neurons from embryonic mouse brains as well as neurons from adult human stem cells.

Then they grew these neurons in a lab dish. The experiment involved clusters of about 800,000 neurons the size of a bumblebee’s brain — a culture they dubbed “DishBrain.”

Then they let them play DishBrain Pong, a simple electronic ping-pong game that was very popular in the 1970s.

“We chose Pong for its simplicity and familiarity, but it was also one of the first games to use machine learning, so we wanted to acknowledge that,” he said Kaganwho worked with researchers from 10 other institutions on the project.

“What machines can’t do is learn things very quickly — if you need a machine learning algorithm to learn something, you need thousands of data samples,” he told AFP.

A dog, on the other hand, “learns a trick in two or three tries.”

How did the brain cells play pong?

To “communicate” with DishBrain, the researchers used electrodes that sent a signal to indicate the ball’s position.

DishBrain responded with another signal to move the paddle. DishBrain was connected to a computer, which the researchers used to provide feedback.

The stimulation was predictable (same spot and frequency) in the event of a win and random when the ball was missed. Over time, the neurons changed their behavior to win.

In case it helps, the process looked like this:

A new understanding of intelligence

DishBrain even tried Google’s dinosaur game, – the one that you can play when your internet connection is down and that consists of making a dinosaur run and avoiding obstacles. Kagan said initial results were encouraging.

The team say the findings could have future implications for disease modeling, drug discovery – creating a potential alternative to animal testing – and more generally expanding the current understanding of how the brain works.

“This is the beginning of a new frontier in understanding intelligence,” Kagan said.

His team considers DishBrain to be “sentient,” which they define as being able to perceive and dynamically respond to sensory information. But it is far from conscious, which is to be aware of its own existence.

“This is well-executed, interesting neuroscience,” said Tara Spiers-Jones of the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study.

She emphasizes that these remain simple – albeit remarkable – circuit reactions.

“Don’t worry, although these bowls of neurons can change their responses based on stimulation, they’re not sci-fi style intelligence in a bowl.”

The team working on DishBrain say the next step will be seeing how it is affected by drugs or alcohol.