Hey folks , how about this :
From the New York Times.
June 15, 2000
Team Links Brain Cells With a Robot
By DANIEL SORID
n another triumph of the scientific imagination,
researchers have
created a fish on wheels. Actually, they took part of the
brain of a
lamprey, an aquatic parasite, and connected it to a mobile
robot,
producing what they call an "artificial animal."
It was the first time, researchers said, that animal brain
cells and a robot
had communicated in two directions.
In findings that will be presented at an artificial-life
conference this
summer, Dr. Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, an associate professor at the
Northwestern University Medical School, and a team of
researchers
from universities in the United States and Italy say that they
were able to
control the motion of a two-wheeled robot by connecting it to
the brain
stem of the sea lamprey.
The scientists removed the
lamprey's
brain stem and part of its spinal
cord
and placed them in a salt solution.
Electrodes were then attached to
the
brain stem and connected to the
robot. The lamprey's brain cells
received a signal from light
sensors in
the robot, and the cells sent signals back to the robot.
Depending on the placement of the electrode on the brain
tissue, the
robot moved toward or away from the light, or in a circle.
The aim of the research is to untangle the mysteries of brain
signals and to
see how the brain's circuits change and adapt to different
stimuli. The
method, however, is unquestionably eerie. "It has echoes of a
literary
kind," Dr. Mussa-Ivaldi admitted.
Linking a life form and a machine may make some people squirm,
but Dr.
Mussa-Ivaldi insists that the system may have practical
benefits, like
better prosthetic devices for humans. "Our goal is not to
construct a
cyborg," he said. "Our goal is to create a tool that will
hopefully help us
understand how the brain works."
Steve Grand, the chief executive of Cyberlife Research, a
British
research and development company that is trying to create
forms of
synthetic life, agreed. Mr. Grand said work by Dr.
Mussa-Ivaldi and
others who study the interactions between living creatures and
machines
could be justified by its potential benefits.
"People are sometimes fearful that artificial life research
will reduce us all
to machines and explain away our souls," he said. "On the
contrary, I
believe it will give us a new understanding and a new respect
for
ourselves, as the most sublime machines in the known
universe."
--
Cheers,
Joao Paulo - Salvador,BA,Brazil
