Crafting human cells to steer robots.
Humankind's drive towards robots is one that has existed for many years, and even Frankenstein's infamous monster could perhaps be close to the idea's inception, but a robot running off living cells is not an old idea. Whether it be a simple way of extending life to immortality (though the means to keep cells alive indefinitely does not exist) or an invading force of alien brains in mechanical warsuits, it has now taken a step closer to being a shocking reality.
A team of scientists at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom recently created small robots consisting of wheels with motor, and an ultrasound proximity sensor to detect when it was close to walls. What was most interesting about the quite simple robot was that it was not controlled by an onboard circuit board; but rather controlled via Bluetooth link to a culture of rat neurons.
Harvested early in the rat's foetus stage of growth, the neurons had not had a chance to fully connect to all the appendages and sensory organs that were still developing - when taken, they were essentially a blank slate. Scientists found then that the individual rat cultures displayed their own 'personalities', behaving and moving in different ways when stimulated with electrical impulses. Clearly, there was something going on.
Those same scientists have taken the idea one step further, collecting samples of human neurons and using them to control the tiny robots. While these human neurons aren't taken from foetuses (due to the inherent ethical and moral problems involved), they are sourced from an external company that grows them in a form of nutrient broth. For all intents and purposes however, the cells are human.
Each culture of rat neurons only survives for roughly three months, and once the current batch wears out the human cells will be installed. The study is aiming to determine the capability of the human neurons to learn and remember certain behaviours and activities, and the results gleaned from these tests could potentially give some insight into certain diseases.
While it's not possible for an entire adult brain to be scooped out and placed into a hulking metallic exoskeleton of death today, it might be possible at some point in the future - though this will be a long time coming, with its own ethical problems. If the technology arrives in a short timeframe, augmented contact lenses and other enhancements might not even be needed!
Until then, head to New Scientist to read a little more about the tiny human-powered robots.
Issue: 111 | April, 2010