Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the nineties shooter game “Doom” and say they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing.

It’s the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system.

Each so-called “biological computer” contains around 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations.

Having mastered the simple computer game “Pong”, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball across a screen, the brain cells have moved on to bigger things.

Initially, the neurons were at the “level of a beginner who’s never played a video game before,” Alon Loeffler, Cortical Labs’ senior application scientist, told AFP.

“Doom” involves a chaotic 3D game-world where the user is required to explore its surroundings and dispatch enemies -- no easy task for a clump of cells.

“They were walking into walls a lot, shooting the walls, turning around, doing funny things like that,” Loeffler said.

“And then eventually they started targeting the enemies more regularly and correctly.”

It’s not the cleanest execution, however. One demon takes several attempts to slaughter, with shots fired in multiple directions before the target is hit.

But the mind-bending research proves the neurons can adapt to stimuli in real time and complete goal-directed learning, Cortical Labs say.