Neurally controlled animat

A neurally controlled animat is the conjunction of Patterns of neural activity are used to control the virtual body, and the computer is used as a sensory device to provide electrical feedback to the neural network about the Animat's movement in the virtual environment.
 * 1) a cultured neuronal network
 * 2) a virtual or physical robotic body, the Animat, "living" in a virtual computer generated environment or in a physical arena, connected to this array

The current aim of the Animat research is to study the neuronal activity and plasticity when learning and processing information in order to find a mathematical model for the neural network, and to determine how information is processed and encoded in the rat cortex.

It leads towards interesting questions about consciousness theories as well.