Neuron Lithography Technique 137
An Anonymous Coward writes: "EE Times has an article about a new technique to build custom-designed networks from biological neurons using chip lithography and polymers to steer the growth of the neurons . Some of the first computers were described as "electronic brains" to the unwashed masses - will researchers have to describe these as "biological computers"?"
Philosophy Singer Nietzsche dead at 167 (Score:0, Informative)
didn't listen to where music you probably wacked off ot one of his videos. Truly an philosophy brainfart.
I didn't know... (Score:0, Informative)
Quantum Consciousness [innerx.net]. Neural stuff.
100% goat-neuron free. ;-D
New trend? (Score:3, Informative)
The site is already slashdotted, man its 4am here, but if nature has already done a good job in design why not borrow it for other purposes. Its like Junkyard Wars but on a very small and living scale.
A nice bonus with using cellurar material is there probably wont be ethical complaints i.e. who identifies with neurons?
Re:The strength of neurons (Score:3, Informative)
I think the best immediate application for this kind of technology is not in constructign useful biological circuits, but in doing basic research on the properties of the nerve cells themselves. Traditionally, most of our knowledge about how nerve cells operate has come from studies of single cells in isolation, and in vitro recording. Neither of these techniques give very much information about the mechanisms which govern interaction between neurons, especially in the ways that their growth and behavior is influenced by neighboring cells. A technique which allows us to control the growth of a nerve culture would be a great tool for studying those interactions, becaue you would be able to more tightly control the interactions present (as opposed to blindly jamming electrodes into brains and trying to infer circuits and connections from correlations in firing patterns, which is more or less the standard technique.)
Koch in Biophysics of Computation showed that given what we know about neurons, they can theoretically implement equivalents of addition, multiplication, feedback, and many other computations, all within a single cell! The range of possibilities is enourmous, and requires a controlled environment to study the different tyeps of interactions. This could be a very important tool for research.
URL of Research Group (Score:3, Informative)
The EE Times article mentioned that a lot of the work is coming from Bruce Wheeler's research group. This is the home page:
http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/labs/wheeler/home.html [uiuc.edu]
And click on "featured work."
Also, if you're an electrical engineer you might be interested in "neuromorphic engineering," in which circuitry is designed with biological inspiration. A few places to check out are:
Caltech Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering [caltech.edu]
Telluride Workshop on Neuromorphic Engineering [unizh.ch]
And this Introduction to Computational Neuroscience [caltech.edu]
- Gregg Favalora -
not much of a technological breakthrough... (Score:2, Informative)
The technique they're using to bring about these results, however, was pioneered by the brothers Vacanti, as you can see in a recent story covered by discover magazine.
Although I retain some measure of hope that this endeavour will meet success, it is of note that the scientists originally turned to stem cell research primarily because more conventional cells die quickly.
Thus, i am not exactly encouraged by the fact that they need to be propped up by artificial means to survive for sufficiently long periods of time.