Researchers create printed neurons that communicate with living brain cells

A team of engineers from Northwestern University (USA) created these new flexible and low-cost devices that imitate complex brain signals and point towards more energy-efficient computing, according to a study published in Nature Nanotechnology.

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This work is a step toward creating electronic devices capable of communicating directly with the nervous system, with potential applications in brain-machine interfaces and neuroprosthetics, including implants for hearing, vision and movement, the university said in a statement.

It also lays the foundation for more efficient computing systems, similar to the brain, which is the most energy-efficient computer known.

The way to make artificial intelligence smarter is to train it with more and more data, which creates a massive energy consumption problem, so “it makes sense to take inspiration from the brain for next-generation computing,” said Mark Hersam, one of the signatories of the article.

The brain works in a strikingly different way from a computer, because it is based on various types of neurons, each with specialized functions, organized in different regions, versus the machine, which is made up of uniform building blocks.

To get closer to a biological model, the team developed artificial neurons using soft, printable materials that better mimic the structure and behavior of the brain.

The basis of this advance is a series of electronic inks, formulated from nanoscale sheets of molybdenum disulfide, which acts as a semiconductor, and graphene, which serves as an electrical conductor, together with a specialized printing technique called aerosol jet printing.

After various processes, the result is a new type of artificial neuron capable of generating a wide range of electrical signals.

Instead of generating simple, punctual impulses, the new device produces more complex signaling patterns, such as single spikes, continuous discharges, and burst patterns, that resemble the way real neurons communicate.

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By capturing this diversity of signals, each neuron can encode more information and perform more sophisticated functions. And that can reduce the number of components needed in a computer system, dramatically improving overall efficiency, the note adds.

To test whether these artificial neurons could actually interact with biology, the electrical signals from them were applied to slices of the mouse cerebellum.

The researchers found that the artificial voltage spikes matched key biological characteristics, such as the timing and duration of voltage spikes of living neurons.

This reliably triggered activity in real neurons, activating neural circuits in a similar way to natural signals.