© UNIVERSITY OF BATH
An artificial neuron in its protective casing.
The authors of a bio-engineering
study just published in the journal
Nature Communications exhibit the kind of calm rationality that makes one believe.
They point out that while a range of neuromorphic silicon devices replicating biological nerve functions have been proposed, a number of problems have hampered the up-to-now theoretical attempts to develop them.
Devices proposed include silicon neurons, synapses and brain inspired networks, but their designs, say the authors, were not meant to copy the behaviour of biological cells, but to search for the organising principles of biology that can be applied to practical devices.
However, an increasing focus on implantable bioelectronics to treat chronic disease is changing this paradigm, they say, and "instilling new urgency in the need for low-power analogue solid-state devices that accurately mimic biocircuits".
The joint British/Swiss/New Zealand team's paper describes a way of
making silicon chips that are much smaller than a fingertip but reproduce the electrical behaviour of biological neurons.
The approach, they say, could lead to the development of bionic chips to repair biological circuits in the nervous system when functions are damaged or lost to disease.
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