From Mind to Machine 用“人腦”做的“生物計算機”

人腦是一臺強大的天然計算機，已經進化了數萬年。但如果將這臺生物計算機與真正的計算機結合起來，會得到什么呢？

美國印第安納大學伯明頓分校的研究人員將類腦組織與電子芯片連接起來，該芯片可以執行簡單的計算機任務。根據《自然》雜志，命名為 Brainoware的這套系統，屬于不斷發展的生物計算領域的一部分，未來或許會超越當前的計算機。

研究人員使用的類腦組織，又名類器官，不是活人大腦的一部分。它們是由人體干細胞培育而成的，能夠分化成不同類型的細胞并形成人體組織。干細胞需要培育兩個月的時間才能長成類器官。

隨后，研究人員將一個類器官放置在帶有數千個電極的電子芯片上。盡管類器官比實際的大腦更簡單、更小，但其行為反應與人腦相似，例如對電信號做出反應——這個大腦一直在做的事情。這些反應會讓大腦發生變化，從而增強我們的學習能力。

The human brain is a powerful natural computer thathas evolved over tens of thousands of years. But whatwould you get if you combined this biological computerwith a real one？

Researchers at Indiana University Bloomington in theUS have linked human brain-like tissues to an electronicchip， which can perform simple computer tasks. Theircreation， named Brainoware， is part of a growing fieldcalled biological computing that might one day outperformcurrent computers， according to Nature.

The brain-like tissues the researchers used， alsoknown as brain organoids， weren’t part of a livingperson’s brain. They were grown from human stemcells， which are capable of producing different types ofcells and forming body tissues. It took two months for thestem cells to mature into an organoid.

The researchers then placed one organoid onto anelectronic chip with thousands of electrodes. Althoughorganoids are much simpler and smaller than an actualbrain， they act similarly to human brains， such asresponding to electrical signals， which is what our braindoes all the time. These responses lead to changes in thebrain， which fuel our ability to learn.

為了測試 Brainoware，研究人員使用了8 個人所說的240 段日語錄音對其進行訓練，從而將它用于語音識別。他們發現類器官對每段聲音的反應都不同。它通過對不同神經活動的反應，成功識別說話者，準確率能達到78%。

據《每日郵報》報道，Brainoware的特別之處在于，研究人員可以在不了解類器官的細胞網絡的情況下利用它的復雜性。換言之，科學家不用確切知道類器官是如何工作的就可以使用它。

根據研究人員在2023 年12 月發表的研究成果，將類器官和電子芯片相結合可以提高未來人工智能的速度和效率。《自然》雜志稱，此類模型還可用于研究人腦。人們可以使用Brainoware 來建模和研究神經系統疾病，如阿爾茨海默病。它還可以用來測試不同治療方法對此類疾病的治療效果。意大利研究人員Arti Ahluwalia 告訴《自然》雜志：“這就是希望所在，未來或許能用這些技術取代動物的大腦模型。”

According to the researchers’ work publishedin December， 2023， combining organoids andelectronic chips could increase the speed andefficiency of AI in the future. Also， suchmodels can be used to study human brains，according to Nature. Using Brainoware to modeland study neurological disorders， such asAlzheimer’s disease， is one example. It couldalso be used to test the effects of differenttreatments for such diseases. “That’s where thepromise is： using these to one day hopefullyreplace animal models of the brain，” ArtiAhluwalia， a researcher in Italy， told Nature.

To test Brainoware， the researchers used itfor voice recognition by training it with 240Japanese recordings spoken by eight speakers.They found that the organoid reacted differentlytoward each voice. With an accuracy of 78percent， it successfully identified the speakersby showing different neural activities.

What’s special about Brainoware is thatresearchers can take advantage of theorganoid’s complexity without understanding itscell networks， according to Daily Mail. In otherwords， scientists don’t need to know exactly howthe organoid works in order to use it.