Closed-Loop Neuronal-Computational Systems: Potentials And Problems

Abstract

Microelectrode arrays can organize cultivated neurons on various scales for closed feedback loops to measurably enhance their computational capacity. A significant step toward advancing computational interfacing of neural networks employs the use of organoid-computing integration (OCI). The use of OCIs can expand capabilities for bio-electronic assimilation via “encoding” cultured neurons (and neuronal systems of multi-scalar organoids) by developing interconnected computerized signaling on surfaces of multielectrode array contacts. It may be that OCIs could afford a valid simulacrum for the functional computational capabilities of neural networks of a living brain, and in so doing may enable insights to both the “hard question” of neuroscience (viz. how conscious and cognitive processes arise in/from a material (biological) system, and if, how and to what extent OCIs impart sentient characteristics to hybrid and/or synthetic systems (in silico). The potential emergence of high-functioning organic-computational intelligence gives rise to a number of neuroethico-legal and social issues, which require address in ways that are herein proposed.

Document Type

Article

Topic(s)

Emerging Science and Technologies, Ethics

Publication Date

8-2024

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