Vitroid - a robot with link between living neuronal network in vitro and robot body

Abstract

Rat hippocampal neurons organized complex networks on a culture dish which has 64 planar microelectrodes and the spontaneous action potentials were frequently observed. The living neuronal network was able to distinguish patterns of action potentials evoked by different inputs, suggesting that a cultured neuronal network can represent and process particular states as symbols. We use a Khepera II robot and a robot made by LEGO mindstorm NXT kit as a robot body for interfacing with a living neuronal network and the outer world. We call the system “Vitroid”. Vitroid has the living neurons, robot body, and direct coupling type of controllers to interface neurons with the robot. We succeeded in performing obstacle avoidance behavior with premised control rule sets. Using self-tuning fuzzy reasoning, we associated a distinct spatial pattern of electrical activity with a particular phenomenon in the outside of the culture dish.