Cells that grow on Silicon?

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 23 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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According to researchers, nerve cells can grow on a microchip. They can learn and remember information. This information can then be communicated to the brain.

The research was carried out at the University of Calgary, Canada. The Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany, also collaborated.

Naweed Syed, a neurobiologist at the University of Calgary's faculty of medicine said 'We discovered that when we used the chip to stimulate the neurons, their synaptic strength was enhanced'.

The memory traces on the nerve cells were read by the chip successfully. The study is published in the February issue of Physical Review Letters.

They used nerve cells which they cultured from a snail. Then they placed them on a silicon chip which had been specially designed.

They then stimulated one nerve cell to communicate with another cell, this cell transmitted the signal to multiple cells within the network. They used a microcapacitor on the chip.

The chip also had a transistor in it. This transistor recorded the communications between the cells.

Naweed Syed said "This discovery is groundbreaking. We've made a giant leap in answering several fundamental questions of biology and neuro-electronics that will pave the way for us to harness the power of nanotechnology'.

This technology could eventually give people total control over their artificial limbs. It could help visually impaired people get their eyesight back.

The aim is to eventually design devices that combine electronic components and brain cells.

They plan to focus their research on interfacing silicon chips with the human brain. Eventually we would have thinking computers.