University of California, San Diego (UCSD), USA - Can lab-grown brains become conscious? A handful of experiments are raising questions about whether clumps of cells and disembodied brains could be sentient, and how scientists would know if they were

Title:

Can lab-grown brains become conscious?

 

Author:

Sara Reardon

Published:

Nature, 27 October 2020

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02986-y

From the article:

In Alysson Muotri’s laboratory, hundreds of miniature human brains, the size of sesame seeds, float in Petri dishes, sparking with electrical activity.  

 

These tiny structures, known as brain organoids, are grown from human stem cells and have become a familiar fixture in many labs that study the properties of the brain. Muotri, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), has found some unusual ways to deploy his. He has connected organoids to walking robots, modified their genomes with Neanderthal genes, launched them into orbit aboard the International Space Station, and used them as models to develop more human-like artificial-intelligence systems. Like many scientists, Muotri has temporarily pivoted to studying COVID-19, using brain organoids to test how drugs perform against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.