Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue gets military funding::undefined

  • cryshlee@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    What does “commercially available plate” and “reward” mean in those respective contexts?

    • Andy@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      The plate is a consumable dish that is designed to fit into this guy: Maestro Pro.

      It’s kind of the iMac Pro of reading electrode signals from cells. It’s a high end piece of lab equipment, and popular for this kind of work. Which is great: it means that this work is more replicatable, as I’m sure lots of people are going to want to try variations on this. There’s a good chance my old boss is at least considering it right now.

      Reward in this context means a nice, soothing syncronized electrical pulses. I’m curious whether more informed experts would validate that this constitutes a desirable effect, but that’s what they went with. The alternative was random noise.

      For you, this would be like, bad: four seconds of audio static. Good: four seconds of metronome.

      • cryshlee@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The possibility that disembodied neurons prefer synchronized “soothing” pulses as opposed to chaotic noise is infinitely more interesting to me than this article.