Brain-implantable biomimetic electronics as the next era in neuralprosthetics
Berger, T.W.; Baudry, M.; Brinton, R.D.; Liaw, J.-S.; Marmarelis, V.Z.; Yoondong Park, A.; Sheu, B.J.; Tanguay, A.R., Jr.
Proceedings of the IEEE
Volume 89, Issue 7, Jul 2001 Page(s):993 - 1012
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/5.939806
Summary:An interdisciplinary multilaboratory effort to develop an
implantable neural prosthetic that can coexist and bidirectionally
communicate with living brain tissue is described. Although the final
achievement of such such a goal is many years in the future, it is
proposed that the path to an implantable prosthetic is now definable,
allowing the problem to be solved in a rational, incremental manner.
Outlined in this report is our collective progress in developing the
underlying science and technology that will enable the functions of
specific brain damaged regions to be replaced by multichip modules
consisting of novel hybrid analog/digital microchips. The component
microchips are “neurocomputational” incorporating
experimentally based mathematical models of the nonlinear dynamic and
adaptive properties of biological neurons and neural networks. The
hardware developed to date, although limited in capacity, can perform
computations supporting cognitive functions such as pattern recognition,
but more generally will support any brain function for which there is
sufficient experimental information. To allow the
“neurocomputational” multichip module to communicate with
existing brain tissue, another novel microcircuitry element has been
developed-silicon-based multielectrode arrays that are
“neuromorphic,” i.e., designed to conform to the
region-specific cytoarchitecture of the brain, When the
“neurocomputational” and “neuromorphic”
components are fully integrated, our vision is that the resulting
prosthetic, after intracranial implantation, will receive electrical
impulses from targeted subregions of the the brain, process the
information using the hardware model of that brain region, and
communicate back to the functioning brain. The proposed prosthetic
microchips also have been designed with parameters that can be optimized
after implantation, allowing each prosthetic to adapt to a particular
user/patient
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