Researchers delving into brain functionality have constructed an interesting, if not disturbing, project to help with their research.  The project takes a rat's brain and, through a circuit board, have it controlling  a small wheeled robot that avoids a series of obstacles.

The researchers hope that the project will lead to advances in treatments in such diseases as Alzheimer's.  Not to mention possible advances in cyborg technology, no doubt.

This is no ordinary robot control system - a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made - and continue to make - connections with each other.

 

As they do so, the disembodied neurons are communicating, sending electrical signals to one another just as they do in a living creature. We know this because the network of neurons is connected at the base of the pot to 80 electrodes, and the voltages sparked by the neurons are displayed on a computer screen.

via