A new artificial organic neuron can fuse fully with a living plant

Get more updates on this story and more with The Blueprint, our daily newsletter: Sign up here for free.

Engineering artificial nerve cells

The study's origins date back to 2018 when a group of Linköping University researchers became the first to construct complementary and printable organic electrochemical circuits. In other words, both n-type and p-type polymers conduct negative and positive charges, respectively. Printed complementary organic electrochemical transistors were made available as a result of this.

The organic transistors were then optimized by the researchers so that they could be made in printing presses on thin plastic foil. The researchers stated that thousands of transistors can be produced on a single plastic substrate.

The scientists employed printed transistors to emulate the neurons and synapses of the biological system in collaboration with researchers from Lund and Gothenburg, according to the study published in Nature Communications.

"For the first time, we’re using the transistor’s ability to switch based on ion concentration to modulate the spiking frequency," said Padinhare Cholakkal Harikesh, post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, who take part in the study.

From prostheses to soft robotics

The signal that drives the biological system to react is provided by the spiking frequency. During the study, the researchers also discovered that the neuron-synapse link exhibits a learning behavior known as Hebbian learning. It was seen that the synapse stores information, which increases the effectiveness of signaling.

"We’ve developed ion-based neurons, similar to our own, that can be connected to biological systems. Organic semiconductors have numerous advantages – they’re biocompatible, biodegradable, soft and formable. They only require low voltage to operate, which is completely harmless to both plants and vertebrates", explained Chi-Yuan Yang, post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics.

The researchers hope that artificial nerve cells can be employed for sensitive human prostheses, implantable systems for neurological disease relief, and soft intelligent robotics.