Princeton researchers have built a 3D device that brings living brain cells and advanced electronics together in one system. The device can be programmed with computational methods to recognize patterns.
Earlier efforts to use brain cells for computation have typically depended on flat 2D cell cultures grown in petri dishes or 3D cell clusters that are monitored and stimulated from the outside. The Princeton system is different because it is designed to interact with the cells from within the network.
The team used advanced fabrication methods to build a 3D mesh of microscopic metal wires and electrodes, held together by a very thin epoxy coating. That coating is flexible enough to work with the soft neurons that grow around it. The researchers used the mesh as a scaffold, allowing tens of thousands of neurons to grow into a large 3D network capable of computation.
The study was published in Nature Electronics.
To read more, click here.