The human brain is a powerful natural computer that has evolved over tens of thou- sands of years. But what would you get if you combined this biological computer with a real one？

Researchers at Indiana University Bloom- ington in the US have linked human brain-like tissues to an electronic chip which can per- form simple computer tasks. Their creation， named Brainoware， is part of a growing field called biological computing that might one day outperform current computers， according to Na- ture.

The brain-like tissues the researchers used， also known as brain organoids， weren't part of a living person's brain. They were \"grown\" from human stem cells which are capable of producing different types of cells and forming body tissues. It took two months for the stem cells to mature into an organoid.

The researchers then placed one organoid onto an electronic chip with thousands of elec-

人腦是一臺強大的天然計算機，已經(jīng)進化了數(shù)萬年。但如果將這臺生物計算機與真實的計算機結(jié)合起來，你會得到什么呢？

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(zhí)行簡單的計算機任務。據(jù)《自然》雜志報道，他們將這套系統(tǒng)命名為Brain—oware，屬于不斷發(fā)展的生物計算領域的一部分，未來或超越當前的計算機。

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，能夠分化成不同類型的細胞并形成身體組織。干細胞需要兩個月的時間才能達到成熟階段，變?yōu)轭惼鞴佟?/p>

隨后，研究人員將一個類器官放置在帶有數(shù)千個電極的電子芯片上。盡管類器官

trodes Although organoids are much simpler and smaller than an actual brain， they act simi- larly to human brains， such as responding to electrical signals， which is what our brain does all the time. These responses lead to changes in the brain， which fuel our ability to learn.

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

What's special about Brainoware is that researchers can take advantage of the organoid's complexity without understanding its cell net- works， according to Daily Mail. In other words， scientists don't need to know exactly how the organoid works in order to use it.

According to the researchers' work pub- lished in December， combining organoids and electronic chips could increase the speed and efficiency of AI in the future. Also， such models can be used to study human brains， according to Nature. Using Brainoware to model and study neurological disorders， such as Alzheimer's disease， is one example. It could also be used to test the effects of different treatments for such diseases. \"That's where the promise is： using these to one day hopefully replace animal models of the brain. \"Arti Ahluwalia， a researcher in Italy， told Nature.

比真實的大腦更簡單、更小，但它們的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。這些反應會導致大腦發(fā)生變化，增強我們的學習能力。

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(fā)現(xiàn)類器官對每種聲音的反應都不同。通過識別神經(jīng)活動的不同，它可以成功識別說話者，準確率達到78%。

據(jù)《每日郵報》報道，Brainoware的特別之處在于，研究人員可以在不了解其細胞網(wǎng)絡的情況下利用類器官的復雜性。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(jù)研究人員去年12月發(fā)表的研究成果，將類器官和電子芯片相結(jié)合可以提高未來人工智能的速度和效率?！蹲匀弧冯s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(jīng)系統(tǒng)疾病，例如阿爾茨海默癥。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(shù)取代動物的大腦模型?！?/p>

選自《21世紀英文報》