From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Mon Apr 28 2003 - 10:23:57 MDT
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/04/030428082503.htm
Georgia Tech Researchers Use Lab Cultures To Control Robotic Device
The Hybrot, a small robot that moves about using the brain signals of a rat,
is the first robotic device whose movements are controlled by a network of
cultured neuron cells.
Steve Potter and his research team in the Laboratory for Neuroengineering at
the Georgia Institute of Technology are studying the basics of learning,
memory, and information processing using neural networks in vitro. Their goal
is to create computing systems that perform more like the human brain.
Potter, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical
Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, presented his most recent
findings last month during the Third International Conference on
Substrate-Integrated Microelectrodes in Texas.
As the lead researcher on a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes
of Health, Potter is connecting laboratory cultures containing living neurons
to computers in order to create a simulated animal, which he describes as a
"neurally-controlled animat."
"We call it the 'Hybrot' because it is a hybrid of living and robotic
components," he said. "We hope to learn how living neural networks may be
applied to the artificial computing systems of tomorrow. We also hope that
our findings may help cases in which learning, memory, and information
processing go awry in humans."
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