{"id":144283,"date":"2022-08-16T17:22:50","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T22:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/this-artificial-neuron-uses-dopamine-to-communicate-with-brain-cells"},"modified":"2022-08-16T17:22:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T22:22:50","slug":"this-artificial-neuron-uses-dopamine-to-communicate-with-brain-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/this-artificial-neuron-uses-dopamine-to-communicate-with-brain-cells","title":{"rendered":"This Artificial Neuron Uses Dopamine to Communicate With Brain Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/this-artificial-neuron-uses-dopamine-to-communicate-with-brain-cells2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The chip is an artificial neuron, but nothing like previous chips built to mimic the brain\u2019s electrical signals. Rather, it adopts and adapts the brain\u2019s other communication channel: chemicals.<\/p>\n<p>Called neurotransmitters, these chemicals are the brain\u2019s \u201cnatural language,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2332554-artificial-neuron-swaps-dopamine-with-rat-brain-cells-like-a-real-one\/\">said<\/a> Dr. Benhui Hu at Nanjing Medical University in China. An artificial neuron using a chemical language could, in theory, easily tap into neural circuits\u2014to pilot a mouse\u2019s leg, for example, or build an entirely new family of brain-controlled prosthetics or neural implants.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41928-022-00803-0\">A new study<\/a> led by Hu and Dr. Xiaodong Chen at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, took a lengthy stride towards seamlessly connecting artificial and biological neurons into a semi-living circuit. Powered by <a href=\"https:\/\/singularityhub.com\/2021\/08\/12\/new-research-shows-dopamine-may-play-a-key-role-in-consciousness\/\">dopamine<\/a>, the setup wasn\u2019t a simple one-way call where one component activated another. Rather, the artificial neuron formed a loop with multiple biological counterparts, pulsing out dopamine while receiving feedback to change its own behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The chip is an artificial neuron, but nothing like previous chips built to mimic the brain\u2019s electrical signals. Rather, it adopts and adapts the brain\u2019s other communication channel: chemicals. Called neurotransmitters, these chemicals are the brain\u2019s \u201cnatural language,\u201d said Dr. Benhui Hu at Nanjing Medical University in China. An artificial neuron using a chemical language [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,1499,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-cyborgs","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}