# The Body as the Active Ingredient

- slug: the-body-as-the-active-ingredient
- date: 2026-04-20
- category: Robotics

In a country where 500,000 children a year are treated in emergency rooms for psychiatric crises and school counselor ratios routinely exceed 600-to-1, a USC lab is running a federal trial to answer a simple question: what can a robot do for a child that a chatbot cannot?

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