Breaking the jar: Why NeuroAI needs embodiment | The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

Brain function is inexorably shaped by the body. Embracing this fact will benefit computational models of real brain function, as well as the design of artificial neural networks. Among cartoon supervillains, Krang, the slimy nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a favorite of neuroscientists. After a vague accident, Krang is stripped of his body and reduced to a brain in a vat of cerebrospinal fluid. Lacking physical agency, Krang appeals to his fellow supervillain, the Shredder, to construct a new brain-machine interface and bipedal robotic skeleton. This freshly re-embodied android Krang teams up with the Shredder to take on the Ninja Turtles and conquer the Earth. Like the visionary writers of the Ninja Turtles, neuroscientists often make the abstraction that a brain can exist in isolation from the body. They model the brain as a computational machine that exists in a realm of pure thought, receiving inputs and sending outputs as abstract information streams. Yet this “br

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• Alexander Huang