Imagine if brain cells could be enticed to perform like cells in a computer network. Thanks to a new breakthrough, that may not be far off. Dr. Yael Hanein of Tel Aviv University in Israel and his team have been able to get rat neurons to distribute themselves in regular patterns.

As reported in the Journal of Neural Engineering, it relies on a phenomenon of equal distribution known as nanodots. These carbon nanodots are placed on a quartz surface. The rat neurons are then distributed randomly. They have no attraction to the quartz but bind to the nanodots, thereby themselves becoming orderly.

Once “assembled,” they extend fibers to each other allowing communication.

Scientists foresee the technology allowing new kinds of sensor devices that might help with security and military purposes, as well as industrial situations where great sensitivity is required.

Specifically, this new type of device would monitor the reaction of the network of neurons in the presence of a compound. Since many neurotoxins are deadly or crippling in tiny quantities, yet exhibit unique signatures of neuronal activity, this represents an ideal way to identify them quickly.

Not only will the neurons communicate with each other, but also with the carbon nanodots to which they attach serve as monitoring stations. The nanodots are electrical conductors, meaning they can instantly identify which neurons are firing and in what pattern.

The new approach assures not only that the neurons start out cleanly organized, but that they stay that way. They cannot grow into a random pattern later.

The test cells last for up to 11 weeks, making them suitably long-lived for many applications. Currently, they are structured as clusters of cells — 20 to 100 per carbon nanodot. Scientists are seeking ways to make the structures from single neurons.

What other applications might be possible?

Imagine this as the first prototype of a new kind of machine. It’s a kind of “living/artificial hybrid.” While it may not seem terribly impressive to put groups of neurons in such orderly clusters, it does have larger possibilities.

Researchers in artificial intelligence have stated that it will be possible to replicate various functions of brains, including higher-order functions, by closely duplicating the arrangements of neurons in brain structures. Here we’re talking about a kind of microscopic scaffolding.

If the scaffolding can be structured not just on a single flat surface but on a huge number of microscopically thin layers — with microscopic holes in the layers to allow communication between them — it becomes possible to envision something that looks like an organic brain.

While this is a considerable stretch from the researchers’ accomplishment, consider the silicon wafer. If you were to look at a modern computer chip under a microscope, you would be dazzled as I have been by the many incredibly intricate arrays of channels, structures and pathways.

It resembles nothing so much as a microscopic city. The complexity of these chips is staggering, with some of them housing billions of different logic array items.

Could these hybrid neuron/nanodot chips eventually approach that kind of complexity? Who knows — but I’ll bet that the computer scientists who were first building with vacuum tubes would be overawed to see what their modest beginnings have wrought.

To your profitable future,
Jonathan Kolber
November 5, 2007

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Emerging Nanotechnology was originally featured in the Penny Sleuth.