A cultured human neural network operates a robotic actuator

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe development of bio-electronic prostheses, hybrid human-electronics devices and bionic robots has been the aim of many researchers. Although neurophysiologic processes have been widely investigated and bio-electronics has developed rapidly, the dynamics of a biological neuronal network that receive sensory inputs, store and control information is not yet understood. Toward this end, we have taken an interdisciplinary approach to study the learning and response of biological neural networks to complex stimulation patterns. This paper describes the design, execution, and results of several experiments performed in order to investigate the behavior of complex interconnected structures found in biological neural networks.The experimental design consisted of biological human neurons stimulated by parallel signal patterns intended to simulate complex perceptions. The response patterns were analyzed with an innovative artificial neural network (ANN), called ITSOM (Inductive Tracing Self Organizing Map). This system allowed us to decode the complex neural responses from a mixture of different stimulations and learned memory patterns inherent in the cell colonies. In the experiment described in this work, neurons derived from human neural stem cells were connected to a robotic actuator through the ANN analyzer to demonstrate our ability to produce useful control from simulated perceptions stimulating the cells.Preliminary results showed that in vitro human neuron colonies can learn to reply selectively to different stimulation patterns and that response signals can effectively be decoded to operate a minirobot. Lastly the fascinating performance of the hybrid system is evaluated quantitatively and potential future work is discussed.

Endogenous cholinergic tone modulates spontaneous network level neuronal activity in primary cortical cultures grown on multi-electrode arrays

“…Furthermore, hypersynchronous activity can hinder effective signal processing of extracellular electrophysiological recordings [21,22] and provides a poorly suited driver for closed-loop neural animat (artificial animal) paradigms in which a culture is embodied using, for example, sensors and actuators of a mobile robot [23-25]. This latter point is of particular relevance as animat use has received considerable support as a platform for investigations of network level processing within a behavioural context without a priori knowledge of underlying cellular and/or molecular mechanisms [23,26-30]. Moreover, unrepresentative neuronal activity will hinder and confound the use of embodied cultured networks in the design of model neural systems and effective brain-computer interfaces for disabled human patients [31].…”

A Neuromorphic Prosthesis to Restore Communication in Neuronal Networks

“…In general, hybrid systems composed of in vitro BNNs coupled to SNNs are rare. In one approach, the SNN served as a self-organizing classifier of activity patterns exhibited by the BNN, with output of the SNN being subsequently used to control the behavior of a robot (Pizzi et al, 2009). Other studies focused on the unidirectional or bidirectional influence of the two networks, investigating the dynamics of the interaction between the BNN and SNN in which the SNN played a role of an artificial counterpart of its biological original (Bruzzone et al, 2015;Chou et al, 2015).…”

A neuroprosthetic system to restore neuronal communication in modular networks

“…In general, hybrid systems composed of in vitro BNNs coupled to SNNs are rare. In one approach, the SNN served as a self-organizing classifier of activity patterns exhibited by the BNN, with output of the SNN being subsequently used to control the behavior of a robot ( 52 ). Other studies focused on the unidirectional or bidirectional influence of the two networks, investigating the dynamics of the interaction between the BNN and SNN in which the SNN played a role of an artificial counterpart of its biological original ( 53, 54 ).…”