A living brain floating in a transparent jar, surrounded by tubes and wires, and at the same time capable of feeling and thinking - this is the imminent future that the headlines of scientific sites drew to us last week. Still, after all, every second popular science publication reported that "the mouse brain was able to live a month outside the skull", and some even talked about "reviving the brain." Reality, as usual, is very different from journalistic fantasies.
Our columnist Nikolai Grinko tells what really happened there.
In fact, the source was an article in a highly specialized magazine. It dealt with the work of the Japanese Center for Research on the Dynamics of Biological Systems RIKEN, where they created a new system for maintaining the viability of brain cells. The staff of the center is engaged in the cultivation of various tissues. When individual cells are taken for research, most often there are no problems with them: they do well in laboratory conditions. But when it comes to more complex structures, it is important that the cells in them do not lose their functions and the ability to interact with each other for as long as possible. For example, when a fragment of the brain is taken, consisting of several thousand neurons, it dries up quite quickly. You can prolong this time by washing it with saline, but the neural tissue is so delicate that the flow of fluid destroys it. To prevent this from happeningthe researchers designed a microfluidic device capable of keeping fluid pressure constant and not injuring tissue. During testing of the new system, scientists placed mouse brain cells in it and saved their basic indicators for 25 days. That, in fact, is all. Several thousand cells lived in a test tube for three and a half weeks. There is no talk of any "revival of the dead mouse brain".
However, this does not prevent us from fantasizing about what will happen if scientists really learn to maintain life in the brain, separated from the body. Imagine that they were able to provide conditions in which the brain will remain functional when placed in a laboratory vessel. Let's also imagine that such stunning results will be achieved in the next five to ten years. Will humanity be able to construct cyborgs with mechanical bodies and human brains? The answer is no.
The point is that the brain needs more than just nutrients and oxygen to function properly. He also needs ways to communicate with the body. There is such a condition as sensory deprivation, in which external influence on the senses is limited. To achieve this effect, a completely dark and completely soundproof room is used. A person is immersed in a pool of very salty water, the density of which allows him to remain calmly on the surface. The temperature of the water and the surrounding air is maintained at the level of the body temperature, sound and light do not penetrate inside, and there is no tactile sensation either. The human brain ceases to receive information about the outside world, no signals enter it.
Sensory deprivation is used for medical purposes, as well as for various kinds of meditation, but its time should be strictly limited. The fact is that the brain, devoid of signals from the outside, after a while begins to actively hallucinate, trying to make up for the information silence, and then irreversible changes occur in it, first psychological, and then physiological. Imagine what would happen if the brain was deprived of any hint of visual, auditory, tactile, and other sensations at all by separating it from the body and placing it in a jar. Degradation will start much faster.
It would seem that the problem can be solved by sending signals from video cameras, microphones and other sensors along the nerves. But the trouble is that at the current level of technology development, there are no ways to do this. Yes, experiments are underway, but scientists are still at the very beginning of the journey. It will take a very long time, perhaps even a hundred years, to fully replace the eyes with cameras, hands with prostheses, and ears with microphones. But you still need to learn how to transmit information in the opposite direction, receiving control signals from the brain for the mechanisms that replace the body.
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In general, we are still very, very far from robots with a human brain. Perhaps they will remain just a figment of the imagination of science fiction writers and anime scriptwriters, as happened with mind readers, time travel and endless chewing gum. Most likely, none of this will ever be invented.
Though…
GRINKO NIKOLAY