Scientists in China develop robot with lab-grown artificial brain

Researchers at Tianjin University and the Southern University of Science and Technology in China have used brain-on-chip technology to develop a robot with a lab-grown artificial brain, according to a report by South China Morning Post.

The scientists reportedly developed the artificial brain by combining a brain organoid (tissue from human stem cells) with a neural interface chip; this technology is called the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). With the help of BCI, the robot with the artificial brain can be taught to avoid obstacles and grip objects.

Ming Dong–vice-president of Tianjin University– said in a statement to the state-owned Science and Technology Daily: “[This] is a technology that uses an in-vitro cultured ‘brain’ – such as brain organoids – coupled with an electrode chip to form a brain-on-chip, which encodes and decodes stimulation feedback”.

According to the report, researchers need human pluripotent cells to form a brain organoid. These pluripotent cells are usually found only in early embryos. If they graft them into the brain, the cells can establish functional connections with the host brain, say the researchers in a manuscript published in the peer-reviewed Oxford University Press journal Brain in May.