Brainoid

The matter between Anton and Mimi is finally settled. Qi Min came to the laboratory a little later than usual. At this time, the three doctoral students had already done experiments.

She originally thought of looking for Ke Yue in the clean room, but then she thought that Ke Que might be in the animal room, and it would be boring to wait in the clean room without being able to play with her mobile phone. So Qi Min sat in his seat in the laboratory and opened Jupyter to take a look at the running status of the code. There was still no problem and it was expected that the run would be completed in another week or two.

Nowadays, machine learning methods can be used to verify and obtain very stable positive results, but the fluctuations cannot be explained for the time being. Previously, researcher Zhou Xiaoshan suggested that she could publish a small article to test the waters first, and then publish the article on the full-scale brainoid body after attracting widespread attention.

This is a routine for making big news in academia, but Qi Min doesn't dare to do it. She is going to point to this article for dinner. If a full-size brainoid comes out and finds that the performance is not much different from 256×256×256, then the second article will lose its originality and may even have a lower impact factor. The first water-testing article. Anyway, the assessment is based on the impact factor. She really might as well wait until the full-scale brain-like body is built soon before publishing the article. This way, she can connect the experimental data and theoretical models during her Ph.D. to the subsequent implementation of the brain-like body. Such a complete Logical chain, even if you can't make any big news, you still have to be rewarded for your hard work, right?

Qi Min was thinking when he suddenly heard footsteps coming from outside the door. The door to the laboratory was usually open, so she turned around and saw Ke Yue coming over carrying a cage for rats.

Ke Yue walked to the door of the laboratory and took a look inside. When he saw Qi Min, he immediately said: "Hey, look at these rats, nothing is wrong with them."

Qi Min got up from his seat and walked over quickly. He saw that although the rats in the experimental group had electrodes inserted into their heads, they were still eating and crawling around like ordinary rats. It seems that the micro-callosal interface invented by the research group of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris is quite reliable.

"How does the metabolic data show?" Qi Min asked.

"I just uploaded it to the network disk and haven't read it yet." Ke Yue said, "I plan to take them to make a water maze now."

"Then shall I go with you?" Qi Min suggested.

Ke Li looked at her and asked with some embarrassment: "Have you ever done a water maze test before?"

Qi Min shook his head hesitantly. She majored in neurophysiology, and after all, she was still a little far behind in terms of memory and learning. Although there have been a small number of verification experiments on memory learning before, they were usually outsourced to companies. Now she doesn’t have that much money to lead her own team, and she has to complete the water maze several times this time, so she has to do it with her own team.

"Then... I'd better go by myself." Ke Li said with a somewhat embarrassed smile, "It's okay, there are technicians at the animal platform who can help."

He obviously felt that Qi Min’s animal experiments were unethical. Qi Min had to admit this, and as a PI, she really didn't need to follow all the experiments, so she had to say: "Go on your own, I will analyze the metabolic data first. Do you want to bring food for lunch?"

Ke Yue thought for a while and said, "Bring whatever you want."

——

It is actually a bit expensive to use metabolic cages for metabolic monitoring of rats. In the animal room of the University of Science and Technology of China, the rent of an imported metabolic cage plus consumables costs more than 1,000. However, since Qi Min only uses a small number of rats for brain-computer interfaces, he can still afford to keep them in a metabolic cage.

The advantage of comprehensive metabolic monitoring is that it is very reliable to assess the impact of callosal interface installation in rats. However, Qi Min did not see any obvious difference in the metabolic data of the rats equipped with the brain-computer interface and the rats in the blank control group that underwent sham surgery. The rank sum test also showed no significant difference. This result can be regarded as supporting the previous article published by the research group of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris.

It seems that this kind of brain-computer interface should be available. It depends on how Ke Quercus does the water maze test. If the corpus callosum interface does not affect the memory and learning ability of rats, then subsequent experiments will be easier to conduct.

The idea of ​​animal experiments designed by Qi Min is actually very simple. She previously suspected that the fluctuations in the 256×256×256 brain-like body were some kind of analogue of consciousness, so she wanted to connect it to the animal brain to see if it would affect its memory and learning function.

Because the corpus callosum interface does not solve the demodulation of brain neuron signals, there is actually no way to implement more complex experiments. But if it can be proven that connecting brain-like bodies does have an impact on animal behavior, writing it in an article and packaging it a little can attract some attention in the industry.

——

At noon, Qi Min, Wang Xin, and Chen Linyou went to the cafeteria to eat together. Unexpectedly, it started to rain heavily outside. Wang Xin did not dare to hold an umbrella while riding a bicycle, so the three of them walked.

While walking down the road, we chatted about recent experiments. Because Qi Min was with Ke Li, he didn't care too much about Wang Xin and Chen Linyou. Let's have lunch together to understand their progress and catch up on them.

Walking on the stairs of the cafeteria, Qi Min was listening to Chen Linyou talk about the problems he encountered while doing neurological ORGANIOD. Someone next to Leng Buding greeted her: "Hey, Qi Min?"

Qi Min turned around reflexively and found that it was Zhang Zhiyong, accompanied by two young men who should be doctoral students in his laboratory. She usually doesn't have much communication with the Chemistry Department, but Zhang Zhi helped her order takeout when they were on a business trip together, so they were more familiar with her than ordinary colleagues.

"Zhiyong, why do you come out to eat?" Qi Min greeted.

"Yeah... I just went out to have a meal while it was raining." Zhang Zhiyong smiled at her, maybe because he was amused by the fact that he, a fellow PI, was taking a doctoral student out to eat.

But for Qi Min, Zhang Zhiyong is a master who has published SCIENCE topics for his Ph.D., and she, a loser who graduated with an article, cannot be compared. Young talents in the scientific research circle are considered approachable if they are close to doctoral students, while ordinary PIs who take doctoral students to eat, drink and have fun are not doing their job properly.

However, Qi Min saw that the two young men with Zhang Zhiyong were crowded under an umbrella, so she took the initiative to hand over her extra umbrella: "I have an extra umbrella here, let me lend it to you first."

"Thank you." Zhang Zhiyong took the umbrella, opened it, and returned the umbrella that should belong to one of the doctoral students in his hand, "I will return it to you before getting off work."

This can be regarded as repaying the favor for helping me make phone calls. Qi Min thought that she needed to communicate more with the masters, so it was unrealistic for her to interact with real masters because of her experience of almost not graduating, but she could use the common ground of both young PIs to get along with future masters. It's easier to get familiar with the face.

There are virus researchers in the laboratory upstairs who use mosquitoes as carriers (?). If I get bitten by a mosquito in the laboratory, I am a little afraid that I will become a mosquito man (mistake)