“The Material Mind”: Scientists Trained A Petri Dish Of Brain Cells To Play Doom

Essay by Katie Pugh, 9th March 2026

Introduction

Epicurus once said “Nothing is created out of that which does not exist: for if it were, everything would be created out of everything with no need of seeds”. The ancient philosopher sat in blasphemous contrast with his peers as he claimed the mind and soul of human beings were in fact made of atoms. Physical matter arranged in such a way as to enable thought. The soul is not immortal; nor some divine, esoteric ingredient bestowed upon us from unseen realms. Of course, this belief sat in stark contrast with the times and Epicurus had no way of knowing what neurons or neuroscience were. His philosophy, however, holds up surprisingly well with modern developments – perhaps now more than ever. 

Scientists at Cortical Labs, a biotech startup situated in Melbourne, Australia, have successfully trained a petri dish of 200,000 brain neurons to play the classic video game ‘Doom’. (Why does everything end up running Doom?). Known for combining biological neurons with silicone microchips, Cortical Labs is focussed on ‘neural organoids’ or ‘organoid intelligence’ (OI), blurring the lines between man and machine. 

If you’ve never heard the term ‘neural organoid’, you’re not alone. If I am to criminally underexplain the concept; these are tiny brain-like structures composed of human stem cells. They mimic certain functions of the brain and are used to study brain development, disease and the creation of new drugs. Researchers now are using them to understand cognition; including learning, memory and intelligence (Alam El Din et al., 2024)

In 2021, Cortical Labs garnered international attention from the neuroscientific community, when they trained around 800,000 neurons to play ‘Pong’ – another beloved digital relic – over the span of 18 months. Now, they have trained just a quarter that amount to play the far more complex, first person shooter game ‘Doom’. They accomplished this in just a week. I know, right? Organoid blown. By translating the game’s visuals and cues into electrical stimulation patterns, the culture could read cues, memorise them and develop responses. Neural firing patterns were harnessed to trigger in-game responses. Of course these cues are not complex; limited to moving, turning and shooting. However, this tiny petri dish of neurons was able to respond in real time, adapting their activity in response to feedback (Prada, 2026). 

The Experiment

So how did they pull it off? To start rather backwardly with the training of the culture, Cortical developed a computational interface for programming bio chips using the coding language Python – commonly used for AI development. Following this, independent developer Sean Cole used Python to teach said chips how to play Doom. Again, in a week. The ever-so-lovingly dubbed ‘DishBrain’ comprises In Vitro neural networks integrated with In Silico computing via a dense multielectrode array. In the original experiment, the culture was embedded in the simulated game world of ‘Pong’ through electrophysiological stimulation and recording. Fast forward to today and Brett Kagan of Cortical Labs has this to say: “Unlike the Pong work that we did a few years ago, which represented years of painstaking scientific effort, this demonstration has been done in a matter of days by someone who previously had relatively little expertise working directly with biology” (Wilkins, 2026). Already, this accomplishment is staggering; venturing into realms of science fiction beyond what most of us can imagine. But it gets much deeper. 

Experiments demonstrated the importance of closed-loop structured feedback to elicit learning over time. Cultures are shown to display capabilities of self-organisation in the pursuit of a goal. Furthermore, they do so in response to minimal feedback regarding consequences to their actions. This is the definition of biological intelligence (Kagan et al., 2022). This process results from a process known as ‘synaptic plasticity’. This is the brain’s ability to modify its connections in response to external stimuli or, in other words, experience. This is the pillar of learning. Different genes are activated to form and maintain memories as the brain evolves and adapts for optimal performance. There are two main types of synaptic plasticity – Long and short term potentiation (LTP & STP). Both of these help to strengthen signals as they pass between neurons, however the experiment focuses on LTP. LTP is how connections in the brain strengthen through repeated use. When a specific signal is fired at continually active synapses (connections between neurons), calcium enters the neuron which leads to more receptors being produced; hence strengthening the pathway between neurons (Stampanoni Bassi et al., 2019). This is why you can train yourself to be good at, for example, cryptic crosswords, which require you to think outside of the logical norm. You can literally train yourself to ‘think outside the box’, much to your Boss’s elation. It would appear the phrase ‘use it or lose it’ applies as much to mental exercise as it does physical. Small wonder. It also furthers the argument that creativity is a muscle you can exercise into strength. 

Ethics and Applications

There are two colossal elephants in the room here. Firstly is the big, fat ‘why?’ Visit the lab’s website and you’ll find this headline: “The research we’ve conducted has produced the world’s first commercialized biological computer. We believe this research is pivotal to novel discoveries previously out of reach” (Cortical Labs, 2025). This is further to Neuroscientist Thomas Hartung, who proposed in a 2023 paper that organoid intelligence and biocomputing could one day outperform silicone computers in both energy efficiency and learning. He also proposes OI as a means to discover new drugs and their effects, model neurological diseases and aid in the development of AI. These give way to the second elephant-sized question – is this ethical?

The Lab states that whilst, yes, the culture is ‘alive’, it is not aware. But who knows when that may change. If just 200,000 neurons can learn, how many more does it take to warrant ethical consideration, and at what point do bio-computers cross the line between tool and living organism? The question of whether AI models can experience awareness, distress or other sensations has always shadowed its development. So what challenges and differences might we face whilst dealing with OI? 

Lavazza (2020) writes on the assumption that consciousness and sentience are not as simple as ‘on or off’, but that they manifest in degrees. First emerging perhaps as learning, as with DishBrain. However a brain developed in vitro may develop differently, or out of sequence with a brain grown in utero, meaning that ordinary measures may not apply. Her paper dissects the double edged sword of organoid consciousness. Firstly, she describes organoids as having no vascular system, meaning no blood vessels to deliver oxygen or nutrients. Few or no microglia, which are immune cells that shape brain development. Finally whilst organoids can have millions of neurons, an adult human brain has around 86 billion. Because of this, most researchers currently believe that organoids cannot support consciousness. However, organoid manipulation may be the closest scientists can ethically get to human experimentation. Some interviewed citizens believe there is heavy crossover between organoids and human cloning. To our knowledge however, there is only one legal argument for the consideration of organoids as natural persons. This is known as the ‘brain death criterion’. In many countries, the legal end of a natural person’s life comes with irreversible cessation of a heartbeat or brain death; the irreversible cessation of neural activity. The argument states that if organoids can produce the relevant neural activity, then it must be a natural person. However, two major criticisms are that the relevant neural activity pertains to control of a physical body, and that for an entity to be a natural person, it must first be ‘born’ (Kataoka, Lee and Sawai, 2023). 

At a 2019 conference, Elan Ohayon warned that we are fast approaching the minimal physical conditions required and are “perilously close to crossing this ethical Rubicon”. The concern being, if there is even a chance that an organoid may feel, experimentation could cause suffering. The problem is that we don’t concretely know what parameters allow for consciousness. Man holds the measuring stick, but what if we’re wrong? To study the components that make up consciousness, researchers measure five pillars: composition of matter, genetic causation and evolution, neuronal network and anatomy, physiological activity patterns and behavioral responses to an environment. Organoids check most off this list, except behaviour. Of course, organoids cannot talk. Lavazza argues that researchers must rely on brain activity metrics to detect awareness. One proposed measure is the Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI). By stimulating the organoid with magnetic pulses, electrical responses are measured using EEG (electroencephalogram), to analyse how complex and widespread the activity becomes. Furthermore, she argues that the consideration of moral status applies when an entity has subjective interests, can experience pleasure or pain and can benefit or suffer. Though organoids have no body, the human brain can generate pain signals where body parts are no longer present – known as phantom limb pain. So theoretically, organoids could experience pain with no way to express it. A nightmare scenario. She equates the studying of organoids to the studying of embryos as they develop into foetuses, minus the physical body. 

This spotlights just how blurred the line between man and machine becomes when discussing OI. To draw a rather disturbing comparison, Dutch animator Cornelis Vlasman posted in December to Instagram account ‘acknowledge.ai’ an artistic, fictional project titled “The Modular Body”. This video introduces “Oscar”, a human modular prototype made up of fleshy, organic modules. These include a brain, heart, lungs, a kidney and arms – essentially sticking together basic components of a human. Like living Lego. As each component is connected, the prototype begins to pulsate as it breathes and circulates blood, before crawling across the table. Created with practical effects and CGI, this video does not encapsulate Vlasmans’ entire project, however it offers insight into the narrative he explores surrounding the ethical implications of synthetic biology. Designed to trigger the ‘uncanny valley effect’ in viewers, he presents life as a material thing which can be synthesised, disassembled and reconfigured on a whim (Instagram, 2017).

The Philosophical Fallout

The philosophical ripples of ‘DishBrain’ are what I like to call the Epicurean Shockwave. It shows that physical matter can in fact produce intelligence. So what of our own intelligence? The human brain and furthermore, the essence of humanity, is of course far more than memory, response and learning. We are, for better or for worse, far more complex. We make friends with one person over the next due to personality, opinion, likes and dislikes to name a few. Markers of individuality. Now, I’m no behavioural scientist, so I will not attempt to dissect the why behind these variations. But DishBrain, for Epicurus, is proof of concept. This experiment however raises significant questions about the very nature of humanity. If thought and mind are simply a product of precisely arranged matter, rather than some supernatural animator, does it show that we are aware by coincidence and nothing more? Or are we discovering how the ‘gift’ of awareness was materialised into something tangible? 

Cartesian philosophy of mind, established by Rene Descartes, posits that the mind can exist without the body. He believed the body to be an unthinking, material, separately existing host for the intangible mind. A concept known as ‘substance duality’ (Thibaut, 2018). This is in stark contrast with Epicurus’ school of thought. If we are to assume there is truth to this, we may never cross the threshold into moral consideration for AI or OI, because the mind entity will not be hosted by an incomplete structure. Why would any soul choose to inhabit DishBrain?

To reference Lavazza’s argument for the emergence of consciousness, Aristotle’s De Amino posited that the soul emerges in degrees, each level corresponding to ‘levels’ of life. From the simple soul of plants and vegetation, the loving soul of animals, rational human soul to the divine soul of what religious folk term God. He believed the human soul allows us to contemplate virtue and ethics, pursue wisdom and reason around abstract concepts. We can grasp the transcendent and This clearly entails more than simple problem solving and cue responses (Treloar, 2025). If this is to be assumed true, then different ‘levels’ of soul surely can only inhabit the corresponding ‘levels’ of body. For example, the soul that inhabits a plant cannot inhabit a human body, and vice versa. As there would be a mismatch in complexity. However if we are to stick with the material mind theory, we could just keep piling neurons together, integrate them with Oscar the robot and boom. There you have a fully conscious, ‘natural person’. Depending on what philosophy resonates with you, you may either regard this as fully feasible or imagine that the quintessential ‘spark’ of humanity would always be missing in a synthesised organoid. 

Conclusion 

To conclude, I’ll take you back to another ancient Greek philosopher. Protagoras once said “Man is the measure of all things”. Mainstream interpretation of this famous quote tells you the subjective nature of human experience shapes the measure of all it encounters. For example, Britain may be cold to the Spanish but hot should you have somehow emerged from Antarctica. Here however, it embodies new, layered meaning. We define intelligence by our own standards, reflecting through our unique lens. We seek to simulate intelligence in our image, designing both the experiment and its measuring stick. Technology increasingly reflects our own nature as we build mirrors of ourselves in fragments. This is nothing new – the first computers were built to mimic logic as calculators were born to perform arithmetic. This experiment was never just about neuron cultures playing Doom (rather badly, in fact). It is humans trying to understand their own intelligence by rebuilding it. We search for answers about our nature and why we are here, seeking to answer the unanswerable, one freakish experiment at a time. 

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’” (Book of Genesis 1:26–27). This passage introduces ‘Imago Dei’, the concept that God made man in his image. The symmetry here is hard to ignore. Biblical scripture is bizarrely applicable as some Frankenstein-coded prophecy – the apple does not fall far from the tree. So what does that make us? If consciousness is simply an organisation of physical matter and we can create it on a smaller scale, then what are the chances that it exists already on a larger scale, or that it is a uniquely human phenomena? Could that larger scale intelligence be what created us in ‘it’s’ image? I don’t mean to sound too blasphemous, but if these cultures could perceive us (and someday they will), would we be regarded as omnipotent beings, the same way a three dimensional creature would perceive a four dimensional one? Really, it’s all a matter of perspective. But one thing is for sure – whether organoids have the capacity to hold true human consciousness or not, we are playing God to understand our humanity. 

References

• Alam El Din, D.-M., Moenkemoeller, L., Loeffler, A., Habibollahi, F., Schenkman, J., Mitra, A., van der Molen, T., Ding, L., Laird, J., Schenke, M., Johnson, E.C., Kagan, B.J., Hartung, T. and Smirnova, L. (2024). Human Neural Organoid Microphysiological Systems Show the Building Blocks Necessary for Basic Learning and Memory. doi:https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.17.613333. [Accessed 9 Mar 2026]
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• Wilkins, A. (2026). Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week. [online] New Scientist. Available at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2517389-human-brain-cells-on-a-chip-learned-to-play-doom-in-a-week/. [Accessed 9 Mar 2026]. 

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