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Growing Human Neurons (Patreon)

Published:
2019-12-03 18:09:48
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Neurons are amazing little microbes capable of learning and making decisions. Modern AI tries to take inspiration from living neurons, but why settle for the synthetic version? By growing human neurons directly connected to a computer it's possible to make a living AI of sorts capable of even complex tasks like flying a plane in a simulation. 


Today we explore our first attempt at doing exactly that. We cover building the first prototype multi electrode array, growing the neurons and attempting to take some readings from them. This is the first part of what will hopefully be a many part series, so stay tuned for updates!

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Growing Human Neurons | DIY Electrode Array

Neurons are amazing little microbes capable of learning and making decisions. Modern AI tries to take inspiration from living neurons, but why settle for the synthetic version? By growing human neurons directly connected to a computer it's possible to make a living AI of sorts capable of even complex tasks like flying a plane in a simulation. Today we explore our first attempt at doing exactly that. We cover building the first prototype multi electrode array, growing the neurons and attempting to take some readings from them. This is the first part of what will hopefully be a many part series, so stay tuned for updates! More reading/sources: _________________________________________________________________ Support the show and future projects: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thethoughtemporium Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/thoughtemporium Become a member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV5vCi3jPJdURZwAOO_FNfQ/join Store: https://teespring.com/stores/the-thought-emporium _________________________________________________________________ My Social Media Pages: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thethoughtemporium/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thethoughtemporium/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/TTEchironex Website: http://thethoughtemporium.com/ _________________________________________________________________ Special thanks to my amazing patrons and channel members! Afrotechmods Alex Alexander Marunowski Alexandre Guhur Ambrose Andre andrew james morris Anita Fowler Applied Science Austin Morris Ben Ben Reay Bennet Huch besenyeim BinarySplit Brady OBrien Chris the Mad Sciencer Comrade Spamuel Danny Chan Dave Yeagly David Choitz Dima Drew DeVault dstensnes Dustin Parciasepe Eisolu Elliot Turner emptymachine ethan lutz Eugene Pakhomov Ezekiel Dohmen Filipsi Frank genuinebyte Harry Pottash ian burghardt Jack Brown James Jaroslav Henner Jase Smith Jim Mussared John John De Witt John Wlazlo Jon Adams Jonathan Dashe Joshua Pedrick Justa Noman Justin Hendryx Kevin Kevin Forsythe kn0tsin Krys Kamieniecki Lambda AI Hardware Leon Leon Schutte Leslie Rohde Lewis Westbury Liam Scaife Louis Cashin Luc Ritchie Marco Reps Martin Haugsand Matthew Broerman Matthew Reece-Ford Maxwell Meinhard Absalon Michael Chatzidakis Monsyne Dragon narvutar1324 Nicholas Fletcher Nico Schlüter Overshafter Patrick Patrick Sweetman Paul Emmerich Paul Richmond Phelan O'Connell Philipp Weber Pietro Saccardi Piper Elinor Ralph Dratman Rauni Robert Boll robert braun Robert Miller Robert S. Sam Pinches sdrwer erwer Sean Coates Sebastiaan Schlappi Simon Convey Simon Hallam SkaveRat tain TheOneTrueJames TheQuickestBrownFox Tiffany Bennett Tom Bullock Tómas Árni Jónasson Vedran Bajic Virgil Ilian Walter Jones xj9 Áva Eriksdóttir Chris Modjeska Phillip Johnson andré bernard mennicken Jose Ayala Shwe Yin Aye Malcolm Berkeley Louis St Pierre Radio Astronomy (MSAS) stevenson primacio John Emery Ajit A bitizen248 Guillermo Alum flantc Gavin Lou just_noXi SheLovesItWhenYouPullOutThatPhenomenalDissertation Dr. Brandon Wiley Jonathan Nagel István Kiss Jorm Skagh txyzinfo Robert Boll trevor skjerpen adamklam1 Hunter Bagby Anthony M Kush Agarwal

Comments

SkaveRat

The epoxy not sticking is probably because the glass is too smooth and the glue doesn't have anything to grab onto. Ideally you would roughen up the surface a bit before glueing. How about using sandpaper to roughen up a ring of the correct size before cleaning and sputtering the plates? The conductors will also have a partial rough surface, but I doubt it would change the properties that much. Also the sticky side of those conductive tapes have quite a high resistance, so you might want to change the way you connect your wires. maybe clamping down some pads onto the spuddered pads?

Afrotechmods

Amazing video. Really stupid question: Instead of creating this electrode array on a glass slide, why not make a PCB with an ENIG (gold plated) finish? Even a cheap board from OSHPark would give you the ability to create 6mil wide features and you'd be looking at about 4 bucks a pop. I can't think of why neurons wouldn't grow on a fiberglass substrate but then again I am not a biologist *shrug*. For visualizing voltages: The input impedance of that oscilloscope is probably too low for something like neuron activity even with the 10X setting. And the measurement would be very susceptible to noise because of your cable length. A multimeter would be useless. You definitely would need some sort of shielded instrumentation amplifier powered by a battery like the Spikerbox or similar design. There's just no way around that.

Eugene Pakhomov
>>29670826

That's exactly what I was wondering about the arrays as well. My only guess right now is that it's preferred to have it on a glass just so that it could be used with a microscope. Maybe another viable option, that could also potentially allow using a microscope, is to get a piece of a multi-core cable made of a preferred material, stick those cores together in a necessary formation, and fix them with epoxy. When it cures, the business end could be polished to a flat surface. Since the epoxy is more or less transparent, it may be possible to use it with a microscope. And you will have a set of wires already attached to the electrodes.

thethoughtemporium
>>29670826

For mammalian work you need to be able to see up through the bottom of the culture vessel. You can't jam a microscope into the wells or into a flask so it's the only way to see what's going on. Also the fiberglass and resin could leach stuff into the culture and kill the neurons. Hence custom made stuff on glass or quartz being the most typical. There are some examples where they forgo being able to see into the dishes, but that's usually a late stage thing once you've mastered the design and don't really care about seeing things for every single run and trust your system. I think I'm gonna upgrade to the nicer spikerbox that comes with 2 channels and is premade. I think part of the issue was I didn't have my usual tools with me when I made it so it was also fairly glitchy. May even reach out and see if they'll sponsor a video and send me a few. If I had 4 that would give me 8 channels of data flow from the neurons. Which I think is plenty for a prototype

thethoughtemporium
>>29670826

lack of rigidity would mean likely failure of the rest of the culture vessel. It could be a clear plastic base, but it can't have copper in it. it'll leak out the edges of the traces and kill the cells. So it has to be gold or another inert metal, but gold doesn't stick super well. So in the end you have to do chrome or titanium as a base and gold on top, and do it with a magnetron. I wish there was an easier off the shelf way to do this but I just don't think there is

Eugene Pakhomov
>>29670826

Clearly, some experiments on telematter assembly from Blingsight are needed. ;) It'd be a useful tool to create useful tools. On a more serious note, another idea is to encase proper wires in glass, just like vacuum tubes. But I imagine it would be even harder to achieve acceptable results with it than with coating. In any case, definitely looking forward for future experiments with neurons.

Jasper
>>29670826

Also it's cool to have made the slide with the leads yourself? I mean to know you did it least once.

Evan Nibbe

Would it be possible for us Patreon viewers to have, say, a link to download the actual video (as in, not take it off YouTube; examples could be things like uploading it to Google Drive and making a sharable link with downloading privileges)? My main concern is just making sure the information in this video is not lost should a future government try to crack down on the ability to grow human neurons in the lab.