200,000 Human Cultured Neurons Learned to Play Doom on a Living Silicon Chip in 2022 Neuron Study | RathBiotaClan
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200,000 Human Cultured Neurons Learned to Play Doom on a Living Silicon Chip in 2022 Neuron Study<br>August 12, 2026
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200,000 Human Cultured Neurons Learned to Play Doom on a Living Silicon Chip in 2022 Neuron Study<br>by Shibasis Rath<br>August 12, 2026<br>in BIOTECHNOLOGY, SPOTLIGHTS<br>Reading Time: 15 mins read
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A Melbourne biotech company called Cortical Labs has spent the past four years building computers whose processors are not silicon transistors but living human neurons. Its newest device, the CL1, made headlines when an independent developer connected roughly 200,000 lab-grown neurons to a version of the 1993 video game Doom, and the cells learned to move and shoot within about a week. The demonstration reopened a debate that started in 2022, when the same company first claimed its neurons showed "sentience," and triggered a formal rebuttal from 30 neuroscientists. This piece lays out what the CL1 actually is, what it can and cannot do, the two decades of research that led to it, and why the unresolved question underneath all of it — whether anything is being felt inside that dish — still has no scientific answer.<br>Cortical Labs’ CL1 Biocomputer Learned Doom’s Basic Controls Within About a Week<br>Figure : DishBrain system and experimental protocol schematicThe Doom demonstration used a single CL1 unit carrying about 200,000 human neurons cultured on a silicon multielectrode array. An independent researcher named Sean Cole, working with Cortical Labs’ Python-based API, built the connection between the game and the cell culture. According to Cortical Labs application scientist Dr. Alon Loeffler, the team and Sean Cole "coded the first working version of Doom using the Cortical Labs API, and running on a CL1." Multiple outlets reported that Cole had little to no prior experience with biological computing and completed the build in under a week using the company’s new high-level programming interface.<br>The setup rewarded the neurons electrically when their output correctly aimed at or eliminated an in-game enemy, and disrupted them with less predictable stimulation when they failed — a punishment-and-reward loop directly descended from Cortical Labs’ earlier Pong experiments. Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Brett Kagan was careful about what the result did and did not show. "So can the cells learn to play Doom? Yes, they’re receiving information, they’re sending commands to move their character around, they’re able to find enemies, and shoot. Is it an esports champion? Absolutely not."<br>That distinction matters for how this article treats the whole story. The Doom demo is a company-run product showcase, not a peer-reviewed study. The peer-reviewed science behind it — the 2022 DishBrain paper — is a separate, published, and independently scrutinized piece of work, and this article treats the two very differently.
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