teaching rat neurons to fly a plane

[pink_ribbon_scars]

did you guys hear about this? this is old news but i bet some new people will read it. i think it's amazing.



Is That a Pilot in Your Pocket?
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65438,00.html

Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.

These neurons are growing on top of a multi-electrode array and form a living "brain" that's hooked up to a flight simulator on a desktop computer. When information on the simulated aircraft's horizontal and vertical movements are fed into the brain by stimulating the electrodes, the neurons fire away in patterns that are then used to control its "body" -- the simulated aircraft.

"It's as if the neurons control the stick in the aircraft, they can move it back and forth and left and right," said Thomas DeMarse, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida who has been working on the project for more than a year. "The electrodes allow us to record the activity from the neurons and stimulate them so we can listen to the conversation among the neurons and also input information back into the neural network."

http://a1112.g.akamai.net/7/1112/492...t1-14_ap_f.jpg


neural networks are amazing. i went to a cool math lecture on them once. it's how machines read zip codes off of envelopes and how we think.

[Isle]

i haven't quite got my head around this. neurons are put in some sort of microchip, and they control it and the function it performs?

why would they use a rat then? surely the rat is too stupid to know what it's doing, let alone fly a virtual plane? maybe they should use some of my neurons, they're much better

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally posted by Stace and Mark
Thats pretty strange.

I wonder what kind of real world applications they hope to see from these kinds of studies.

Woudl you please stop using this retarded account

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally posted by Nimrod's Son
Woudl you please stop using this retarded account

Give him a break. Since we live in an apartment together its really annoying to constantly be logging the other person out and logging yourself in. We were going to make an alias to fuck with everyone but then decided that we didn't care that much. So instead we decided to mock Sam and Mike. The end.

[KrazeeStacee]

Besides, I forgot to log it out last night.

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally posted by Stace and Mark


Wouldn't it be even more annoying if I was serious about it?

OMG LIKE SAM AND MIKE YEAH THAT WOULD BE

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally posted by KrazeeStacee


Give him a break. Since we live in an apartment together its really annoying to constantly be logging the other person out and logging yourself in. We were going to make an alias to fuck with everyone but then decided that we didn't care that much. So instead we decided to mock Sam and Mike. The end.

This is mocking Sam and Mike.

You're just doing the same thing they do, and if you thought they were annoying, well, consider that others will have similar opinions of your account

[DeviousJ]

Originally posted by Isle
i haven't quite got my head around this. neurons are put in some sort of microchip, and they control it and the function it performs?

why would they use a rat then? surely the rat is too stupid to know what it's doing, let alone fly a virtual plane? maybe they should use some of my neurons, they're much better

I think they grew them on a matrix of electrodes, just to see what would happen. It's not flying a plane like a pilot, it's getting information and reacting to it, probably to try and reach equilibrium or something. So if the neurons think they're unbalanced, they react until they see a change for the better, and continue doing that until the information they get says they're level, or whatever. They won't be trying to explore or do loops or anything. I guess the point is to see how the brain works in response to stimuli and stuff

EDIT grew not crew

[KrazeeStacee]

Originally posted by Nimrod's Son

This is mocking Sam and Mike.

You're just doing the same thing they do, and if you thought they were annoying, well, consider that others will have similar opinions of your account

But see the point is, we don't care though. Instead, for you Nimrod...we will make an account called something other than Stace and Mark and we will post together, in harmony...without offending or annoying any other netphorians. kay?

Edit: could we end these side comments or take it to another thread?

[DeviousJ]

Originally posted by Stace and Mark
I was serious about my rat brain question.

Anyone know?

Could be applicable in loads of places - machine vision research, AI and neural networks, even stuff like this

[KrazeeStacee]

Besides, look...we already have 40 posts. HOW CAN YOU SAY NO?

Unless you want to sell us some of yours

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally posted by KrazeeStacee
Besides, look...we already have 40 posts. HOW CAN YOU SAY NO?

Unless you want to sell us some of yours

I think that process got outlawed when they realized I was profiting

[Slacker]

I was goofing around once at a party and stuck the plug in of a lamp in my ear and the lamp calculated the hubbel constant and displayed the result on the lightbulb.

[pink_ribbon_scars]

Originally posted by Slacker
I was goofing around once at a party and stuck the plug in of a lamp in my ear and the lamp calculated the hubbel constant and displayed the result on the lightbulb.

you should be a scientist or something

[pink_ribbon_scars]

http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/NNIntro/InvSlides.html

Neural networks are being used:

in investment analysis:
to attempt to predict the movement of stocks currencies etc., from previous data. There, they are replacing earlier simpler linear models.

in signature analysis:
as a mechanism for comparing signatures made (e.g. in a bank) with those stored. This is one of the first large-scale applications of neural networks in the USA, and is also one of the first to use a neural network chip.

in process control:
there are clearly applications to be made here: most processes cannot be determined as computable algorithms. Newcastle University Chemical Engineering Department is working with industrial partners (such as Zeneca and BP) in this area.

in monitoring:
networks have been used to monitor
* the state of aircraft engines. By monitoring vibration levels and sound, early warning of engine problems can be given.
* British Rail have also been testing a similar application monitoring diesel engines.

in marketing:
networks have been used to improve marketing mailshots. One technique is to run a test mailshot, and look at the pattern of returns from this. The idea is to find a predictive mapping from the data known about the clients to how they have responded. This mapping is then used to direct further mailshots.

Pen PC's:
PC's where one can write on a tablet, and the writing will be recognised and translated into (ASCII) text.

Speech and Vision recognition systems:
Not new, but Neural Networks are becoming increasingly part of such systems. They are used as a system component, in conjunction with traditional computers.

White goods and toys:
As Neural Network chips become available, the possibility of simple cheap systems which have learned to recognise simple entities (e.g. walls looming, or simple commands like Go, or Stop), may lead to their incorporation in toys and washing machines etc. Already the Japanese are using a related technology, fuzzy logic, in this way. There is considerable interest in the combination of fuzzy and neural technologies.

[Slacker]

Originally posted by pink_ribbon_scars
http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/NNIntro/InvSlides.html

Neural networks are being used:

in investment analysis:
to attempt to predict the movement of stocks currencies etc., from previous data. There, they are replacing earlier simpler linear models.

in signature analysis:
as a mechanism for comparing signatures made (e.g. in a bank) with those stored. This is one of the first large-scale applications of neural networks in the USA, and is also one of the first to use a neural network chip.

in process control:
there are clearly applications to be made here: most processes cannot be determined as computable algorithms. Newcastle University Chemical Engineering Department is working with industrial partners (such as Zeneca and BP) in this area.

in monitoring:
networks have been used to monitor
* the state of aircraft engines. By monitoring vibration levels and sound, early warning of engine problems can be given.
* British Rail have also been testing a similar application monitoring diesel engines.

in marketing:
networks have been used to improve marketing mailshots. One technique is to run a test mailshot, and look at the pattern of returns from this. The idea is to find a predictive mapping from the data known about the clients to how they have responded. This mapping is then used to direct further mailshots.

Pen PC's:
PC's where one can write on a tablet, and the writing will be recognised and translated into (ASCII) text.

Speech and Vision recognition systems:
Not new, but Neural Networks are becoming increasingly part of such systems. They are used as a system component, in conjunction with traditional computers.

White goods and toys:
As Neural Network chips become available, the possibility of simple cheap systems which have learned to recognise simple entities (e.g. walls looming, or simple commands like Go, or Stop), may lead to their incorporation in toys and washing machines etc. Already the Japanese are using a related technology, fuzzy logic, in this way. There is considerable interest in the combination of fuzzy and neural technologies.

how do they feed all the brains?

[Liquid-J]

MY BRAIN IS A NEURAL NETWORK, A LEARNING COMPUTER

[Isle]

Originally posted by Liquid-J


MY BRAIN IS A NEURAL NETWORK, A LEARNING COMPUTER

<3

[pink_ribbon_scars]

Originally posted by Slacker


how do they feed all the brains?

coffee?