Dec 13, 2025 11:51 PM
https://undark.org/2025/12/12/interview-matthew-owen/
INTRO: It’s been more than a decade since scientists first started publishing papers on neural organoids, the small clusters of cells grown in labs and designed to mimic various parts of the human brain. Since then, organoids have been used to study everything from bipolar disorder and Alzheimer’s disease, to tumors and parasitic infections. Because these new tools have the potential to reduce the use of animals in research — a goal of the current Trump administration — the field’s future may be more financially secure than other areas of scientific research. In September, for example, the federal government announced an $87 million investment into organoid research broadly.
Matthew Owen brings a unique perspective to this emerging field. As a philosopher of mind, he focuses on trying to understand both what the mind is and how it relates to the body and the brain. He draws on the work of historical philosophers and applies some of their ideas to modern-day science. In 2020, as a visiting scholar in a neuroscience lab at McGill University, he was introduced to researchers working with organoids. Owen, who also does research in bioethics, wanted to help them address a perhaps unsettling question: Could these miniature cell clusters ever develop consciousness?
Some experts believe that organoid consciousness is not likely to happen anytime in the near future, if at all. Still, certain experiments are prompting the question. In 2022, for example, researchers, including Brett Kagan of the Australian start-up Cortical Labs, published a paper explaining how they had taught their lab-grown brain cells to play a ping-pong-like video game. (Because the cells were placed in a single layer, the structures were not technically organoids, though they are expected to have similar capabilities.) In the process, the authors wrote, the tiny cell clusters displayed “sentience.” Undark recently spoke with Owen about this particular experiment and about his own writing on organoids.
Owen is a faculty member in the philosophy department at Yakima Valley College and an affiliate faculty member at the University of Michigan’s Center for Consciousness Science. The interview was conducted over Zoom and has been edited for length and clarity... (MORE - details)
INTRO: It’s been more than a decade since scientists first started publishing papers on neural organoids, the small clusters of cells grown in labs and designed to mimic various parts of the human brain. Since then, organoids have been used to study everything from bipolar disorder and Alzheimer’s disease, to tumors and parasitic infections. Because these new tools have the potential to reduce the use of animals in research — a goal of the current Trump administration — the field’s future may be more financially secure than other areas of scientific research. In September, for example, the federal government announced an $87 million investment into organoid research broadly.
Matthew Owen brings a unique perspective to this emerging field. As a philosopher of mind, he focuses on trying to understand both what the mind is and how it relates to the body and the brain. He draws on the work of historical philosophers and applies some of their ideas to modern-day science. In 2020, as a visiting scholar in a neuroscience lab at McGill University, he was introduced to researchers working with organoids. Owen, who also does research in bioethics, wanted to help them address a perhaps unsettling question: Could these miniature cell clusters ever develop consciousness?
Some experts believe that organoid consciousness is not likely to happen anytime in the near future, if at all. Still, certain experiments are prompting the question. In 2022, for example, researchers, including Brett Kagan of the Australian start-up Cortical Labs, published a paper explaining how they had taught their lab-grown brain cells to play a ping-pong-like video game. (Because the cells were placed in a single layer, the structures were not technically organoids, though they are expected to have similar capabilities.) In the process, the authors wrote, the tiny cell clusters displayed “sentience.” Undark recently spoke with Owen about this particular experiment and about his own writing on organoids.
Owen is a faculty member in the philosophy department at Yakima Valley College and an affiliate faculty member at the University of Michigan’s Center for Consciousness Science. The interview was conducted over Zoom and has been edited for length and clarity... (MORE - details)
