NEURAL PROSTHETIC INTERFACES BETWEEN NEURAL AND ELECTRONIC COMPUTING

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses neural prosthetic interfaces between neural and electronic computing. Many diseases and injuries of the nervous system produce focal disabilities by interrupting sensory input or motor output while leaving intellectual function intact. Researchers in artificial intelligence and robotics have developed satisfactory electronic devices and signal processing algorithms to replace these peripheral functions. Neuroscientists have achieved a solid understanding of the nature of signal encoding and transmission in the afferent and efferent pathways of most systems, and biomedical engineers have succeeded in developing implantable electronic devices that are sophisticated, miniature, and biocompatible. For all of these reasons, many researchers are actively engaged in developing neural prosthetic devices to treat a wide range of disabilities including deafness, blindness, and paralysis. Central to all of these clinical applications is the need for highly parallel and often bidirectional communications between electronic circuitry and neural pathways. This presents fundamental problems in biophysics and biomaterials because of the differences in the way that electrical currents propagate as electron motion in solid-state conductors and semiconductors as compared to ionic flow through membranes and fluids.