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Artificial synapse technologies
the technologies required to create what is called the 'artificial synapse platform', namely a system allowing functional bi-directional information exchange between a biological entity and a micro/nano-fabricated device (Figure1). In particular, IMEC is developing transducer devices fabricated in advanced CMOS and III-V semiconductor technologies, capable to pick up and/or trigger electrical and chemical signals in neuronal cells.
By bringing together all these technologies, the aim is to successfully implement the artificial-synapse concept into in vitro hybrid neuroelectronic devices that could be used as disease model systems or biosensors and also neuroprobes that could be used in vivo for therapeutic purposes.
IMEC has developed an approach enabling to guide neuronal growth into simplified networks with single cell resolution. This enables direct correlation of individual neurons with relevant positions on a chip surface and can improve activity recordings by means of microelectrodes or field-effect transistors.
L-glutamate is one of the principal neurotransmitters in the brain, responsible for fundamental processes as sensory perception, learning and memory. Synaptic transmission in neuronal networks occurs on a very short time scale and is highly specific.
Up till now, amperometry with enzyme-modified electrodes has extensively been used to monitor extracellular glutamate release.
http://www.microelectronics.be/wwwinter/mediacenter/en/SR2005/html/142372.html
Synapse chip taps into brain chemistry
10:02 24 March 2003 A microchip that uses chemicals instead of pulses of electricity to stimulate neurons has been created. It could open the way to implants that interact with our nervous system in a far more subtle way than is possible now.
Devices that use electrical stimulation are already commonplace, such as the cochlear implants that partially restore hearing. But electric pulses stimulate nerve cells indiscriminately. Different neurotransmitters, in contrast, have different effects on a given cell.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3523.html
Development of an artificial synapse using an electrochemical micropump
The method of electric stimulation in available artificial sensory organs is fairly nonselective
http://www.springerlink.com/content/umff2c2wb2nmc9ac/