Science has created a lab grown gamer brain that plays Pong

No, you didn’t accidentally click on our sister site’s website, The onion. A scientist actually grew a brain in a lab and unfortunately it’s a gamer.

According to that BBCdr Brett Kagan, the scientific director of the Australian research company Cortical Laboratories, assembled a small brain in a lab from stem cells from human and embryonic mice, about 800,000 in total. That Company research report claims the resulting neural network “learned” how to play a simulation of Atari’s 1972 tennis game, pong. By connecting the laboratory brain to the pong-like simulation using electrodes, Kagan et al. claim that brain cells were able to learn how to “play” the game in just five minutes, although it’s still a noob who often misses. Kagan said that BBC that he hopes the findings from the lab-grown brain will support further research into treating Alzheimer’s.

“When people look at tissues in a bowl, they see at that moment whether there is activity or no activity. But the purpose of brain cells is to process information in real time,” Kagan said BBC. “Unlocking their true function opens up so many more areas of research that can be explored extensively.”

Now that his team has corrupted the mind of the lab-grown brain forever to become a player, Kagan told dem BBC that the next step is to test how alcohol affects him MLG per pong skill. That’s right, beer pong for science. Bet you wish you paid attention in elementary school. For Kegan and his laboratory brain, however, it’s not all about fun and gamer games. According to that BBC, when the brain’s performance when intoxicated is the same as when it is sober, the effectiveness of Kagan’s research is “underlined”. So no pressure, lab brains, just shoot some Pabst Blue Ribbon like a college student on a bender and you’ll be fine. Probably.

While the Brainlet “learns” how to play pong is impressive, despite his mediocre skills of having no thumbs, some within the scientific community feel that Kagan is taking it a step too far when he claims that the brain cells are sentient, as that would mean spawning this petri dish of mother brain has the ability to feel.

“We couldn’t find a better term to describe the device,” Kagan said. “It’s able to take in information from an external source, process it, and then act on it in real-time.”

Before you worry about this getting too scary, Kagan told dem BBC that his team will work with bioethicists to ensure their experiments do not inadvertently develop consciousness. It’s good. Well, I’m waiting for a lab grown brain to come into the room EVO tournament in a few years.