A neuromorphic prosthesis to restore communication in neuronal networks

Stefano Buccelli, Yannick Bornat, Ilaria Colombi, Matthieu Ambroise, Laura Martines, Valentina Pasquale, Marta Bisio, Jacopo Tessadori, Przemysław Nowak, Filippo Grassia, Alberto Averna, Mariateresa Tedesco (+5 others)
2019 iScience  
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
more » ... uronal 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.
doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.07.046 pmid:31421595 pmcid:PMC6706626 fatcat:n2lk5zws3nfulobeckryb3vqn4