Artificial biological systems with their own behavior.

With nervous system

And while scientists try to simulate the human brain with increasingly powerful supercomputers, another line of research follows a completely different path - instead of trying to reproduce the mind digitally, these researchers are beginning to build living systems capable of developing behavior on their own.

Researchers at the Wyss Institute created a new type of robot that is not made of metal or traditional circuits, but of living cells organized in a controlled manner, giving rise to structures called neurobots that represent an important leap in relation to the so-called Biobots or xenobots developed previously.

The difference is that now these systems not only move, but also have something that did not exist before in this type of structure, a functional nervous system capable of directly influencing behavior. These neurobots are formed from frog embryonic cells that during development receive neuronal precursor cells. Over time, these cells differentiate into neurons that begin to connect with each other, forming real neural networks that interact with the rest of the biological body.

This detail completely changes the scenario because in previous models the movement occurred in a simpler way, without central coordination, basically guided by physical mechanisms, now there is an internal system capable of organizing and modifying that behavior. In practice, the researchers observed that the presence of these neurons altered not only the movement, but also the very shape of these structures, making the neurobots more elongated, more active and with more complex and spontaneous behavioral patterns.

This indicates that the nervous system is not only present, but is functioning, influencing decisions and reorganizing the body itself. The tests carried out reinforce this idea because when scientists applied substances that affect communication between neurons, the neurobots reacted differently than models without a nervous system, confirming that the neural network is active and playing a real role in behavior.

But perhaps the most intriguing point lies beyond movement. During the experiments, the researchers identified changes in the genetic expression of these structures, including genes linked to the development of sensory systems, which opens the possibility that in the future these systems can develop even more complex forms of interaction with the environment. And this puts this technology in a unique position because it stops being solely engineering and begins to occupy a space between biology and machine, creating a new category of systems that do not completely fit into either of the two.