{"id":1824320,"date":"2026-03-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1824320"},"modified":"2026-03-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:00:00","slug":"meanwhile-scientists-have-trained-human-brain-cells-in-a-petri-dish-to-play-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1824320","title":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, scientists have trained human brain cells in a petri dish to play Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Yes, that headline is accurate. Somewhere out there in the world there\u2019s a petri dish full of human brain bits that\u2019s able to play seminal 1993 shooter\u00a0<em>Doom<\/em>. No, we don\u2019t know what to do with that information either.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This disquieting news was made possible by the Cortical Labs and their CL1 computer \u2013 commercially available by the way, if you\u2019ve got $35,000 to spare \u2013 which uses human brain cells on a computer chip to send and receive electrical signals. A bit like a brain does.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">According to Dr Alon Loeffler, the team of scientists working on the project \u201cneeded to translate the digital world of\u00a0<em>Doom<\/em> into the biological language of neurons, which is electricity&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Needed is a strong word, but nevertheless the team managed it. It\u2019s not the first time they\u2019ve trained a synthetic brain-microchip hybrid to play a game, either, having successfully taught the CL1 to play\u00a0<em>Pong<\/em> in 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;<em>Doom<\/em> was much more complex [than\u00a0<em>Pong<\/em>],&#8221; Dr Brett Kagan explains in Cortical Lab\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/yRV8fSw6HaE?si=b0c9Pvt3BrHKkixh\" target=\"_blank\">video about the project<\/a>. &#8220;Doom is chaos, it&#8217;s 3D, it has enemies, it has an explorable environment, and it&#8217;s hard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Quite understandably, it isn\u2019t especially good at blasting hellspawn with a shotgun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p><em>Doom<\/em> has become a strange kind of hardware benchmark over the last thirty years. The challenge is to find the most basic or rudimentary electronic device that can run it, with items including a pair of earbuds, an analog oscilloscope, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/itrunsdoom\/comments\/1rbxuxt\/my_office_phone_runs_doom\/\" target=\"_blank\">this person\u2019s office phone<\/a> all pulling off the feat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, that headline is accurate. Somewhere out there in the world there\u2019s a petri dish full of human brain bits that\u2019s able to play seminal 1993 shooter\u00a0Doom. No, we don\u2019t know what to do with that information either. This disquieting news was made possible by the Cortical Labs and their CL1 computer \u2013 commercially available [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1824320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1824320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1824320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1824320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1824320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}