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Organoid Intelligence: Computing on the Brain


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Artist's representation of a brain made up of organoids.

Organoid Intelligence is a collective effort to promote the use of brain organoids for computation, drug research, and as a model to study at a small scale how a complete brain may function.

Credit: iStock

Researchers have proposed using brain organoids—spherical masses cultured from neural tissue—as computational systems.

Underlying the so-called organoid intelligence initiative are induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) and three-dimensional (3D) cell culturing methods.

Biologists can use new 3D-scaffolding techniques to grow IPSC-derived neural tissues vertically and horizontally, allowing organoids to evolve the interneuronal networks observed in animal brains.

The University of California, San Diego's Alysson Muotri believes organoids' mimicry of the network and cellular architecture of specific cortical and subcortical structures may facilitate the information processing capabilities of brain tissue.

Multielectrode arrays wrapped around organoids can record neuron activity so researchers can deduce neuronal communication mechanisms via causal modeling.

From IEEE Spectrum
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Abstracts Copyright © 2023 SmithBucklin, Washington, D.C., USA


 

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