Biohybrid Systems

How do living cells and engineered components share sensing, actuation and control? Covers tissue-powered machines and neural interfaces; wholly biological constructs belong in Origins and Synthetic Life.

Organism-device integration

  • Cyborg self-regulation - Clynes and Kline propose extending bodily regulation with technological components for space travel. The organizing idea is an organism-device system whose regulation operates without continuous conscious attention. Clynes and Kline 1960.

Living actuators and neural interfaces

  • Tissue-engineered swimming ray - Light-responsive rat heart cells drive an elastomer body with a gold skeleton. Patterned muscle activation produces swimming; externally controlled light frequency and left-right stimulation steer the robot through obstacles. Park et al. 2016.
    • Self-paced biohybrid fish - Opposing cardiac muscle layers and an intrinsic pacing node sustain swimming through mechanoelectrical feedback. Four laboratory-maintained fish retain swimming performance for 108 days, extending the externally paced ray design. Lee et al. 2022.
  • DishBrain - Cultured human or mouse neurons control a simulated Pong paddle through an electrode interface. Closed-loop feedback improves the measured play relative to controls; the apparatus supplies the game, encoding and stimulation. Kagan et al. 2022.
    • DishBrain interpretation - Balci et al. question whether the controls and behavioral effects warrant intelligence or sentience claims. Kagan et al. defend a technical definition of sentience; the exchange supplies no independent replication. Balci et al. 2023, Kagan et al. 2023.
  • Brainoware - An electrode-coupled brain organoid acts as an adaptive reservoir with a trained software readout. Repeated stimulation improves nonlinear prediction and raises eight-speaker classification accuracy from 51% to 78% in five organoids. Cai et al. 2023.

Open questions

  • How long can an integrated system maintain performance, and which nutrient supply, stimulation and apparatus maintenance does it require?
  • Which controls identify the contribution of living tissue separately from the interface and external controller?