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Review
. 2024 Jun 24;5(8):101011.
doi: 10.1016/j.patter.2024.101011. eCollection 2024 Aug 9.

Why brain organoids are not conscious yet

Kenneth S Kosik  1
Affiliations
Review

Why brain organoids are not conscious yet

Kenneth S Kosik. Patterns (N Y). .

Abstract

Rapid advances in human brain organoid technologies have prompted the question of their consciousness. Although brain organoids resemble many facets of the brain, their shortcomings strongly suggest that they do not fit any of the operational definitions of consciousness. As organoids gain internal processing systems through statistical learning and closed loop algorithms, interact with the external world, and become embodied through fusion with other organ systems, questions of biosynthetic consciousness will arise.

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Conflict of interest statement

K.S.K. is an employee and holds appointments as the Harriman Professor in Neuroscience and co-director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at University of California, Santa Barbara; is a member of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study Epstein Family Research Scientific Advisory Board at University of California, San Diego; is a co-founder and director of the Tau Consortium at the Rainwater Charitable Foundation; has equity in and is a board member of Minerva Therapeutics; and receives consultancy fees from Expansion Therapeutics.

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