Video: How scientists taught mouse brain cells in a petri dish to play Pong

The classic 1970s arcade game Pong is so simple that apparently, anyone can play it – including brain cells in a lab.

Yes, you’ve read correctly. Scientists in Australia have taught neurons grown in a petri dish to learn how to play a basic video game.

The researchers say these “mini brains” can sense and react to their environment and using them for drug testing or computing could have far-reaching implications for health, technology, and society as a whole.

[Cortical Labs Chief Scientific Officer Brett] Kagan and his colleagues harvested neurons from embryonic mouse brains as well as neurons from adult human stem cells.

They then grew these neurons inside a lab dish. The experiment involved clusters of about 800,000 neurons, the size of a bumblebee’s brain – a culture they nicknamed “DishBrain”.

Then they made DishBrain play Pong, a basic electronic ping-pong game that was very popular in the 1970s.

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To “communicate” with DishBrain, the researchers used electrodes, sending a signal to indicate the position of the ball.

DishBrain answered with another signal to move the paddle. DishBrain was connected to a computer, through which the researchers gave feedback.

The stimulation was predictable (same location and frequency) in case of a win and random when it missed the ball. Over time, the neurons modified their behaviour to win.

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