This could become quite relevant in future control systems if the setup can be made simple to keep alive and stable.
I was doing some follow-up on a story about people controlling aircraft with their brainwaves (through EEG) when I ran into this really cool story. The idea of growing the neurons in patterns is incidentally very similar to the Physarium slime-mold stuff that Dario and me were curious about a little while ago.
Oh, I thought that was on the little robot that was controlled by rat neurons and bumped into EVERYTHING.
The interesting thing here is that they add a surface patterning (with some kind of nutrient) to control the growth of cells. (Maybe that is not new either, though.)