Since the neurons only need one-billionth the power of a microprocessor, they’re ideal for medical implants (Image credit: University of Bath)
The quest to design artificial neurons has been an ongoing one. It’s been a major goal in the medical field since it opens up the possibility to cure conditions where the neurons aren’t working properly. One team of scientists may have achieved this goal with their new artificial neurons on silicon computer chips. Their study was recently published in Nature Communications.
Researchers at the University of Bath and from the Universities of Bristol, Zurich, and Auckland, created these artificial neurons that act just like biological ones. The big difference is they only need one-billionth the power of a microprocessor, which makes them ideal for use in medical implants. The team hopes they will be used in medical devices to treat chronic diseases like heart failure, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases of neuronal degeneration.
Developing artificial neurons has always been a challenge due to complex biology and the unpredictability of neuronal responses. To create the artificial neurons, the researchers modeled and derived equations to determine how neurons respond to electrical stimuli from other nerves. From there, they designed the chips that modelled biological ion channels before showing how their silicon neurons mimicked real, living neurons responding to a range of stimulation.
“Until now, neurons have been like black boxes, but we have managed to open the black box and peer inside,” University of Bath physicist Alain Nogaret said in a press release. “Our work is paradigm-changing because it provides a robust method to reproduce the electrical properties of real neurons in minute detail.”
Nogaret also says their method also incorporated several breakthroughs, and now, they can estimate the accurate parameters that control any nerve cell behavior with high precision. “We have created physical models of the hardware and demonstrated its ability to successfully mimic the behavior of real living neurons. Our third breakthrough is the versatility of our model, which allows for the inclusion of different types and functions of a range of complex mammalian neurons.”
If further testing proves to be a success, the team hopes to use these neurons to build medical devices that can better treat patients. They’re currently working on a smart pacemaker that will respond to real-time demands placed on the heart. This has the potential to be a big breakthrough for medical science. These artificial cells open up many possibilities to repair nerve cells that have been lost or damaged due to degenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s.
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