Scientists teach clump of BRAIN CELLS in Petri dish to play cult video game

Boffins have pulled off a mind-blowing stunt – teaching a clump of living brain cells to blast their way through cult video game DOOM.

In a world-first that sounds straight out of a sci-fi blockbuster, eggheads at Aussie biotech firm Cortical Labs have trained more than 800,000 living neurons in a petri dish to play the iconic shooter.

The Melbourne-based team first made waves a few years back when their so-called CL1 ‘mini-brain’ managed to run the 1972 arcade classic Pong.

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That alone was enough to raise eyebrows in the tech world.

Now they’ve cranked things up a notch, as reported by What’s the Jam.

Their latest feat sees the same brainy tech tackling DOOM – the fast-paced, monster-packed 3D blaster that defined a generation of gamers.

The CL1 system is made up of real, living neurons grown in a nutrient-rich solution.

These cells spread across a silicon chip, which sends and receives electrical signals.

Those signals are then translated into actions inside the game.

It might sound like something cooked up in a Hollywood writer’s room, but the system works in a similar way to artificial intelligence.

The big twist? It needs far less processing power and could have huge implications across the biotech industry.

Four years on from their Pong breakthrough, the scientists decided to see if their mini-brain could handle something far more demanding.

Enter DOOM.

Brett Kagan, Cortical Labs’ chief science officer, said their earlier Pong success was a “massive milestone” because it proved biological neurons could learn in real time and adapt to achieve a goal.

But it was no quick win.

Brett said: “It took us 18 months with our original hardware and software to get this to work.

“And Pong was much simpler.”

DOOM, on the other hand, was a different beast entirely.

Brett said: “It’s 3D, it has enemies, it needs to explore – it’s an environment, and it’s hard.”

To make it happen, the team had to convert the world of DOOM – its corridors, monsters and mechanics – into electrical impulses the cells could understand.

Those signals allowed the neurons to ‘see’ what was happening and respond.

But they are not exactly esports champions just yet.

Brett added: “Right now, the cells play a lot like a beginner who’s never seen a computer.

“And in all fairness, they haven’t.

“But they show evidence that they can seek out enemies, they can shoot, they can spin.”

The leap from batting a digital ball back and forth in Pong to navigating a chaotic 3D shooter is a huge one.

If a dish of brain cells can learn to survive in DOOM’s demon-filled corridors, the question now is simple – what game will they conquer next?

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