iScience
Volume 19, 27 September 2019, Pages 402-414
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Article
A Neuromorphic Prosthesis to Restore Communication in Neuronal Networks

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2019.07.046Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • We developed a novel real-time neuromorphic system acting as a neuroprosthesis

  • The neuroprosthesis can bidirectionally reconnect two disconnected networks

  • The neuroprosthesis implements a real-time spiking neural network

  • The spiking network can successfully replace the activity of a neural population

Summary

Recent advances in bioelectronics and neural engineering allowed the development of brain machine interfaces and neuroprostheses, capable of facilitating or recovering functionality in people with neurological disability. To realize energy-efficient and real-time capable devices, neuromorphic computing systems are envisaged as the core of next-generation systems for brain repair. We demonstrate here a real-time hardware neuromorphic prosthesis to restore bidirectional interactions between two neuronal populations, even when one is damaged or missing. We used in vitro modular cell cultures to mimic the mutual interaction between neuronal assemblies and created a focal lesion to functionally disconnect the two populations. Then, we employed our neuromorphic prosthesis for bidirectional bridging to artificially reconnect two disconnected neuronal modules and for hybrid bidirectional bridging to replace the activity of one module with a real-time hardware neuromorphic Spiking Neural Network. Our neuroprosthetic system opens avenues for the exploitation of neuromorphic-based devices in bioelectrical therapeutics for health care.

Subject Areas

Neuroscience
Systems Neuroscience
Computer Science
Evolvable Hardware
Electronic Materials

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13

These authors contributed equally

14

These authors contributed equally

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