Scientists use living brain tissue to create cybernets

American scientists from Indiana University in Bloomington have developed a new type of neural network using living brain organoids grown from stem cells. The research has been published in the scientific journal Nature Electronics.

Organoids bear little resemblance to the human brain, resembling miniature structures made of specific types of tissues. While incapable of generating thoughts, emotions, or consciousness, these structures facilitate the study of organ structure without the need for experiments on humans.

Researchers turned to organoids to design neural networks because the biological brain requires significantly less energy compared to fully electronic artificial intelligence (AI) systems. For instance, our brain needs about 20 watts of energy to function throughout the day, whereas an AI based on microprocessors requires around 8 million watts to achieve remotely comparable results.

The new development, named Brainware, is an organoid with a diameter less than a nanometer, mounted on a high-density multi-electrode array. This chip can send electrical signals to nerve tissue and read the resulting electrical activity.

The tested cybernetic system involved solving two types of tasks: speech recognition and solving nonlinear equations. In the first test, the accuracy of decoding Japanese phrases increased from 51% to 78% over two days.

In mathematical calculations, Brainware proved noticeably faster than artificial neural networks (ANNs) without a long-term memory block and slightly lagged in accuracy behind ANNs with long-term memory. However, scientists noted that more effective artificial neural networks took much more time to train compared to the organoid-based AI. Under equal conditions, Brainware learned 90% faster than fully electronic counterparts.

Researchers highlight that their discovery is a significant step towards a new type of computer architecture. At the same time, they emphasize that the further development of such technologies must take ethical aspects into account. Additionally, supporting organoids requires life support systems, and the need for these systems partially offsets the energy consumption savings.