The brain is not just a collection of electrical signals. Scientists believe that if we can learn absolutely everything about how it works, then, at least in theory, we can digitize someone's mind, and then download it into a computer, thereby creating a virtually immortal digital personality, as it was, for example, featured in the movie Supremacy with Johnny Depp. It sounds fantastic, of course, but scientists are moving in this direction. If we talk about the human brain, then we have not even gotten close to this level, but some success was demonstrated by a team of international scientists who digitized the brain of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans.
Scientists have studied very well the tiny nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We know all of her genes, as well as the peculiarities of her nervous system. Therefore, in 2014, researchers within the OpenWorm project were able to map the connections between all 302 neurons of the worm and, based on the data obtained, create a digital version of the system of its neurons. The main goal of the project was to fully replicate Caenorhabditis elegans in the form of a digital organism, but the researchers decided to go further and not only created a digital version of the nematode brain, but also loaded it into a simple robot created from the Lego set.
This robot is actually the physical embodiment of the worm and has all the necessary equivalent body parts of the nematode: a sonar sensor that acts as an olfactory system, and a set of motors that act as the worm's motor neurons on each side of its body. Surprisingly, without any pre-programmed instructions, the digitized version of Caenorhabditis elegans' neural system is actually capable of controlling a robot.
“The robot is said to be capable of behaving in a manner similar to that exhibited by the living worm Caenorhabditis elegans. External stimulation of the sensor, simulating its olfactory organ, makes the robot stop. Touching the front and back sensory sensors, as well as stimulation of the sensor responsible for the food system, makes it move forward or backward,”writes the I-Programmer.info website.
Timothy Busbice, founder of the OpenWorm project, in turn posted a video on YouTube showing the "life" of the Lego worm. He moves back and forth, stops and moves again.
The researchers note that the digital simulation of the worm's brain is imperfect and in some respects simplified. For example, scientists had to simplify the process that triggers artificial neurons. But the fact that the robot actually moves on its own, can stop in front of an obstacle, and then move backward, using nothing more than just digitized code that mimics the work of neurons in the worm's brain, looks pretty impressive.
The OpenWorm project continues its work and is completely open source. Its official website contains simulation models and visualization of digital nematodes. Now the researchers want to restore the work of the iOS-application that they once created, which allows them to monitor the activities of the digital worm (a kind of analogue of "Tamagotchi", only without direct control), so they are looking for people who are ready to help them in this matter.
And yet digital worms are so much fun. The key goal of the project is to create a connectome - a description of all the neural connections of the human brain. As a result, even if we cannot load our brains into computers, but just learn to create their simulation models, even this will make a significant contribution to the development of artificial intelligence and computer systems in general.
Promotional video:
Nikolay Khizhnyak
