A team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel has received considerable attention in recent months for innovations in the development of logical circuits from neurons rather than wires. According to an article in NewScientist, and more recently at robot.net, scientists have successfully created logic circuits from neurons grown in a geometric design.
The researchers have implemented this by coaxing rat nerve cells to grow along tiny grooves etched in glass. In fact, the scientists have become so proficient at it that, according to the group’s website, they will grow and custom test designs submitted from anyone with a plausible idea for a new neuronal circuit. The technology proves to have important implications for the future of neurobiological research. According to the chief researcher, Elias Moses, “We have been able to enforce simplicity on an inherently complicated system. Now we can ask, ‘What do nerve cells grown in culture require in order to be able to carry out complex calculations?’ As we find answers, we get closer to understanding the conditions needed for creating a synthetic, many-neuron ‘thinking’ apparatus.”
(Credit: Image courtesy of Weizzman Institute of Science/Physics of Complex Systems)
While Dr. Moses doesn’t explicitly point his research to the realm of robotics technologies, the application of neurobiological systems to replicating human movement and cognition is an important area of ongoing research. ‘Zygbotics’ addresses this topic by arguing that the development of humanoid robotics will certainly undergo fundamental transformations in the coming decades, but that in order for this technological revolution to proceed at an efficient pace, robotics researchers will have to look beyond the domain of conventional integrated circuit design and mechanics to the realm of neurobiological systems and nanotechnology. The researches in this area are not new (see the article, “A Neurobiological Perspective on Humanoid Robot Design,” published nearly a decade ago in the July-Aug. 2000 issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems—a journal associated with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The research team in Rehovot, Israel has demonstrated that a critical technological paradigm is shifting and that neuronal circuits are a present reality that must be factored into the future of technology innovations in such areas as humanoid robotics development. One can already envision the applications of such research to the study of neuroscience and electric signal processing, and ultimately to the development of external neural prosthetic devices that can reproduce human movements through an interface of hybrid circuits. However, to develop the level of sophistication and agility of movement that roboticists envision, for example, in designing humanoid robots that can beat the human world soccer champion team by the year 2050—the inspiration behind RoboCup—it seems that considerable efforts will have to be made on how to develop nanocircuits that can process quadrillions of signals in the interface between organic and inorganic thresholds.
The costs of research and development on this front will be enormous and the technological challenges manifold, multifaceted and complex, but the prospects of building robots that can be employed across a broad landscape of social contributions are of enormous value. By assisting in the home, helping the elderly, providing a playmate to a child, serving as security guards, policing the streets, or participating in other high risk jobs such as protecting combat zones, fighting fires, conducting rescue operations, and mining, robots of the future will secure a formidable and pragmatic role in communities and civic societies across the globe.
