Life and Rhythm
Why do humans involuntarily respond to music with movement? This project explores the origins of this universal human response at the most fundamental level of life—neurons.
Our bodies constantly maintain rhythm without conscious effort. The heartbeat, synchronized brain waves, and breathing rhythms—all of these life activities exhibit inherent rhythmicity. Using cerebral organoids, this project investigates the relationship between this intrinsic rhythm of life and the response to external rhythmic musical stimuli.
- 2025
- Cerebral organoids, microelectrode array system, software, speakers, displays
Description
This exhibition presents an experimental process exploring the mechanisms of rhythm recognition and generation in cerebral organoids.In the experiment, rhythmic patterns are delivered to the cerebral organoid as electrical signals, and its responses and self-generated neural activity are observed. During the first 30 seconds of a 1-minute cycle, rhythmic patterns are input through periodic electrical stimulation. In the latter 30 seconds, the stimulation is stopped, and the spontaneous activity of the cerebral organoid is recorded.
The activity of the cerebral organoid forms distinctive patterns, which are visualized in real time and also converted into acoustic signals. By observing and listening to how the cerebral organoid responds to rhythmic input and how its spontaneous activity evolves, we can gain insight into the learning and generation of rhythm in biological systems.As a new experimental approach, we are conducting an experiment where the response of brain organoids is fed back into the input (electrical stimulation). Specifically, in addition to the current process of “MIDI drum pattern (sequence data) → electrical stimulation → response (observation),” we introduce a new step: “response → reconversion into a MIDI drum pattern → (delay) → electrical stimulation.” This additional electrical stimulation is applied to a location separate from where the initial sequence-based stimulation occurs.
The delay is inserted to prevent direct electrical feedback (oscillation) that does not involve internal processing within the brain organoid. Through this loop, neurons recognize the rhythm they generate and create new rhythmic patterns based on their own past outputs. This creates a cyclical process akin to recurrent neural networks (RNNs) in artificial intelligence. However, due to the nonlinear interactions and noise inherent in biological neural circuits, the system exhibits more complex and unpredictable behavior than conventional AI models.
The background of this experiment is based on the hypothesis that one of the reasons humanity developed higher intelligence is that we became capable of perceiving our own spoken words in the same way as words heard from others. Surprisingly, before this evolutionary shift, early humans were thought to be incapable of recognizing their own speech. In this experiment, we aim to observe how a feedback loop, where the brain organoid recognizes its own actions (playing drums), influences its behavior and rhythmic output.
Technical details
Hardware
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MacBookPro
- Stimulation pattern conversion
- Rhythm pattern conversion
- Sound generation
- Visualization
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Server (API)
- Stimulation command generation
- Pre-processing
- High-density microelectrode array system
- Cerebral organoids (two connected)
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GPU server
- Visualization
- Rendering
- Hardware decoder
- Speaker
- Display 55inch ×2
System configuration diagram
Screen capture
Feedback mode
Generative mode
Training mode
