‘Biocomputer’ combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware
A system that integrates brain cells into a hybrid machine can recognize voices // Nature Report
Researchers have built a hybrid biocomputer — combining a laboratory-grown human brain tissue with conventional electronic circuits — that can complete tasks such as voice recognition.
The technology, described on 11 December in Nature Electronics1, could one day be integrated into artificial-intelligence (AI) systems, or form the basis of improved models of the brain in neuroscience research.
The researchers call the system Brainoware. It uses brain organoids — bundles of tissue-mimicking human cells that are used in research to model organs. Organoids are made from stem cells capable of specialising into different types of cells. In this case, they were morphed into neurons, akin to those found in our brains.
The research aims to build “a bridge between AI and organoids”, says study co-author Feng Guo, a bioengineer at the University of Indiana Bloomington. Some AI systems rely on a web of interconnected nodes, known as a neural network, in a way similar to how the brain functions. “We wanted to ask the question of whether we can leverage the biological neural network within the brain organoid for computing,” he says.
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