Monday 3 November 2008

Mechanic robot with living rat's brain

Gordon the robot with the rat brain and living cells It is more than surprising what have a team done at the University of Reading (England) emulated by Frankenstein! And you’ll be more surprised when you discover in more details.. this left completely stunned. Let get closer:

The robot named Gordon works with a network of neurons extracted from a rat brain. These neurons were extracted, immersed in a physiological saline, then placed on a bed of sixty electrodes. after that connections were established between living neurons and the 60 small electrodes. Thus a network formed in the first 24 hours (50 000 - 100 000 neurons) and after just a week, spontaneous electrical charges were produced. these impulses are now controlling the robot via a connection with the electrodes of the muscles effectors, oops sorry :) engines effectors.

Gordon began to learn by repeating, for example, when the robot is facing a wall, once, then twice, and so on; in the end he will learn to sidestep the obstacle! and how he knows he struck a barrier? it's simple, there are electronic receivers that send electrical signals to the neurons when the robot reaches a wall, sort of an electronic skin. So the brain has its own related small sensory made for him and connected to it! The final touch of researchers will be to increase the voltage on some electrodes with chemicals to modulate the transmission to neurons. a sort of psychotropic drugs .. :)

The project manager Dr Kevin Warwick said that if the robot and consequently the brain is not stimulated and doesn’t learns anything new for a long time, he neglect him self as in humans ... a kind of depression:) The team has developed several brains and observed difference in personality, even with only a brain of 100 000 neurons only! then we can find some violent robots, others nice and quiet, some learn quickly, and other less intelligent who learn slowly .. In the end, the use of human neurons is an ethical problem rather than technical.. Imagine a robot with human neurons! it's crazy .. The robot can even clam for his rights as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Citizen of 1789 .. :) It could be possible one day.. robots who control the world!Note that a rat carries a maximum of 1 000 000 (1 million) neurons, a human got some 100 000 000 000 (100 billion) of neurons. while the current robot has a maximum of 100 000. is therefore a simplified version of a complete human prototype brain. To achieve a more intelligent robot, it only remains to increase the number of neurons.. and we will have a robot that: loves, hates, cries and laughs .. in brief, a human-robot!

Even science fiction had not imagined this!

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