Growing Living Rat Neurons To Play... DOOM? | Part 1
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited whenever biocomputing or neurons-on-chip come up, as an accessible example of how such a system can be built.
What it is
The Thought Emporium grows living rat neurons on an electrode array and tries to train them to play Doom. It is part of a series on biological computing.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2023 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec chneu · 2025-06 · on “Human Brain Cells on Chip for Sale – First biocomputing platform hits the market”
The YouTuber "The Thought Emporium" has been working on a similar project for a few years. [this video] They run an amazing channel that covers a variety of topics. Highly recommend. The mummification video is fun.
Recommends zonkerdonker · 2024-05 · on “First Bioprocessor Powered by Human Brain Organoids”
Anyone ineterested in more wetware projects should check out the series from The Thought Emporium on youtube: [this video] They are attempting to train a (literal) neural network to play DOOM. And yes, it os as fascinating and horrifying as it sounds. It's hard not to extrapolate 50 years down the line with this tech. Stuff gets complicated quick. How many human neurons do you have to use before you get an actual human consiousness?
Recommends fenykep · 2026-03 · on “Living Human Brain Cells Play Doom on a CL1”
I think the Thought Emporium youtube channel has some explanatory [videos]( [this video] ) of the whole process. I couldn't wrap my head around the thing tho.
Cites seesawtron · 2023-08 · on “Mathematical theory predicts self-organized learning in real neurons”
Karl Friston has been a long time proponent of the free energy principle in brain [0]. This paper claims to have found evidence that supports this principle in "neurons on a chip" based system [1] [0] [LINK] [1] [this video]
Cites panarchy · 2023-12 · on “'Biocomputer' combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware”
[this video] Growing Living Rat Neurons To Play... DOOM? The Thought Emporium [LINK] Growing Human Neurons Connected to a Computer The Thought Emporium
Cites vinnyvichy · 2024-08 · on “Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech”
Thank you for your curiosity! Decentralization is a very long term effort -- Grothendieck said it would take generations, we can't expect immediate results. So while 100R certainly can't survive without relying on industry, it does do research into technologies that may be easier to "deindustrialize". See the "off-grid" and "sustainability" pages on their site. Finer point: even before the industrial revolution, humans have had access to supercomputers -- their own brains! It's conceivable that in the not so far future we will be able to grow computers of our own design, from just air and water. See promising efforts in this direction, it's not an empty dream! [this video] I guess the moral of th
Cites hiatus · 2024-08 · on “Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent for $500 per month”
Thought Emporium on YouTube made a few videos utilizing organoid bio processors but iirc their neuron source is pig not human. [this video]
Cites seesawtron · 2024-08 · on “Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent for $500 per month”
I was once contacted by FinalSpark where they offered free early remote access to use their biocomputing platform. The platform is accessible remotely and allows experiments on neurospheres made from living cells, sitting in an incubator, in their lab, in Vevey, Switzerland. A neurosphere is a round structure build out of approximately 10’000 neurons, connected to electrodes in different places. The platform uses python scripts to communicate with the neuron allowing for various functionalities, such as: Stimulate living neurons, Read data from neurons, Log all the data in a database, and Display graphically the results of experiments for further analysis. I was too busy to come up with a cl