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Growing Living Rat Neurons To Play... DOOM? | Part 1

10 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this demo3 months2023–2026 score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Cited whenever biocomputing or neurons-on-chip come up, as an accessible example of how such a system can be built.

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.

“They run an amazing channel that covers a variety of topics. Highly recommend.” (HN, 2025)

1 strong recommendations · 2 recommendations · 7 citations · 1 jokes · Demos · partly dated

11 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@zonkerdonker May 2024 Recommends
on HN thread 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?
Series training neural network to play DOOM
@fenykep Mar 2026 Recommends
on HN thread 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.
Explains the process of growing neurons that play Doom

Citations, criticism and jokes

@vinnyvichy Aug 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Hundred Rabbits is a small collective exploring the failability of modern tech
Read more
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 the day with regards to banks and finance is, don't jump the gun! We will need them until we can grow raspberry pies on a tree!
@seesawtron Aug 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent for $500 per month
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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 clear project idea that could beat alreadty existing stuff such as neurons playing Doom [0] (not related to FinalSpark). Still waiting for someone to show something cool using this platform. [0] [this video]
Example of neurons playing Doom
@skulk May 2025 Cites it
on HN thread The CL1: the first code deployable biological computer
The Thought Emporium, a YouTube channel, has some videos that demonstrate how something like this could be built: Growing Rat neurons to play DOOM (unfinished): part 1 -- [this video] part 2 -- [link] Growing human neurons: [link]
Demonstrates how a biological computer could be built

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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