Artificial Neurons are a fairly modern piece of technology that is starting to be widely used in the field of medicine and biology. Artificial neurons are a synthetic neuron that can replace biological neurons.
Author: Bolt Yi
Editor: Ella Kim
In the 21st century, chronic diseases resulting from neurodegeneration are still considered an extremely fatal disease. Some examples include Alzheimer’s, heart failure, and ALS. Alzheimer’s disease affects the brain’s ability to remember, think, and behave, leading to the patient to be unable to perform daily tasks. Heart failure is a disease that prevents the heart from pumping blood around your body; it causes high heartrates and dizziness. ALS(Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) controls neurons to cause loss of muscle control. Neurodegeneration is a process that causes permanent damage to neurons, or our brain cells. Since artificial neurons can help reduce death rates due to these diseases by replacing the natural biological neurons, they can be crucial to the medical field in the upcoming years.
Recently, researchers have been studying about how biological neurons react with each other. Neurons communicate with each other by small electrical signals, and they both send and receive signals to perform daily tasks. They have derived equations on the data of the electrical stimuli. In order to mimic these biological neurons, scientists must develop a function to model these electrical signals for each reaction/function of the neuron. This is arguably the most important part of the development of these artificial neurons since one mistake will be signaled to all neurons involved in the process. After many tests, they finalized the function which they used in silicon chips that they designed to mimic the actions of a neuron based on the modeled function. The function was successful in producing the normal outputs of hippocampal neurons and respiratory neurons. Hippocampal neurons play a critical role in the formation of new memories and in the detection of new surroundings, occurrences, and stimuli. This means that the artificial neuron can counteract Alzheimer’s disease by replacing faulty neurons with new artificial neurons that can perform as healthy neurons. Respiratory neurons, as the name suggests, allow respiration to happen, thus sustaining life. Respiratory failure is caused by the failure of these neurons. This is in most cases, fatal. With artificial neurons however, these failing respiratory neurons can be replaced with newer, healthier ones. These are two of many successful processes. These neurons are also power-efficient, only requiring 140 nanowatts(about 700 million of these can power a refrigerator)to work properly. This is an efficient amount considering what a crucial role it plays in the brain.
In the near future, it is evident that artificial neurons will be able to further mimic a neuron to cure diseases that are currently ruled incurable. Although neurons can be a great breakthrough in medical sciences, neurons regulate everything in one’s body, which means that one wrong signal might not just end with a slight delay. These innovational technologies come with certain risks and researchers and scientists should be as precise as possible.
Reference:
Kumar, A., Sidhu, J., Goyal, A., & Tsao, J. W. (2021, August 11). Alzheimer Disease. Alzheimer's Disease. Retrieved July 1, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499922/.
Melvin, C. (2019, December 3). World first as artificial neurons developed to cure chronic diseases. University of Bath. Retrieved June 18, 2022, from https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/world-first-as-artificial-neurons-developed-to-cure-chronic-diseases/
SanFranAnnie. Flaming Lotus Girls Neuron. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/74551611@N00/3993231378.
Wheeler, D. W., White, C. M., Rees, C. L., Komendantov, A. O., Hamilton, D. J., & Ascoli, G. A. (2015, September 24). Hippocampome.org: A knowledge base of neuron types in the rodent hippocampus. eLife. Retrieved June 18, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4629441/
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