Background 

Treatments to seek neurodegenerative diseases are constantly under research and improving with advanced technology. A recent study published in Frontiers in Neuroscience showed how neural implants into the brain can replace faulty bio circuits with synthetic circuits in neurodegenerative diseases¹. Neural implants are technical systems that are used to stimulate structures of the nervous system accompanied with an implanted electrical circuitry of nerve cells². Neuromodulation is one of the therapy techniques used for neurodegenerative diseases which allows to stimulate the central nervous system to modulate nerve excitability and release neurotransmitters leading to alleviating the effects of neurological diseases². The development of implantable neuro-electrodes is advancing quickly to be successful in neurodegenerative disease treatments such as deep brain stimulation¹. Microelectrode arrays can reliably record a high percentage of neural activity from implanted neurons for several months in animal studies⁴. Neural implant technique allows to reestablish severed connections, substitute lost pathways, and replacement of tissue defects in animals⁵. Researchers then have developed a hybrid neural network where the biological and artificial neurons can communicate with each other through a hub of artificial synapses over the internet and created by nanotechnology⁶.

Results

Researchers use a model of live neurons in a computer program to recreate action potential firing patterns in silicon chips⁷. The program allows to mimic the neurons with a 97% accuracy⁷. The bionic neurons receive electrical signals from healthy nerve cells and process the signal live to the other neurons in a computer program⁷. Engineers have concocted dust-size brain implants, electrodes that climb nerves like a vine, flexible electrodes made from nanoelectronic thread, record electrical activity from brain to blood vessel, and an injectable electronic mesh⁸. After 1 week if implanting coated and uncoated the neural electrodes in vivo of SD rats, iSODm (superoxide dismutase mimic compound, manganese III mesotetrakis porhyrin) was synthesized to covalently attach to the neural probe surfaces³. The iSODm compound indicated a high catalytic superoxide scavengening activity, microglia cell line culture, and coating effectively reduced superoxide production³. Additionally, the iSODm coated electrodes showed a significantly lower expression of markers for oxidative stress immediately adjacent to the electrode surface and significantly expressed less neurons undergo apoptosis³. The artificial neurons are placed on silicon microchips to control the nanoelectronic synapses called memristors⁶. After the neural implants have been placed and observed, the artificial neurons can be observed in a hybrid neural network. Then the biological and artificial neurons are linked together and able to communicate across global networks and can be used in neuromodulation within diseases⁶. 

Conclusion

Brain function relies on circuits of spiking neurons with synapses playing a key role in memory storage and processing and electronics have been advancing to emulate neurons to brain-computer technology⁹. Restoring failing brain circuits is a technique to circumvent nerve damage and help in diseases such as paralyzed people to regain movement⁷. An obstacle neural implants face is researchers need to map how the neurons are communicating because without mapping the implants are shooting electrical impulses into the dark⁸. Placing neural implants has been significantly improving and developing new methods since the 1950s¹⁰.  The branch of neurophysiology is concerned with understanding the functions of neural systems and plays a huge impact in the neural engineering¹⁰. Neural engineering uses biomedical techniques to understand, repair, replace, enhance, and exploit properties and functions of neural systems¹⁰. This branch continues to achieve steps in neuromodulation and conducts future research in improving treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

[+] References

[+] Other Work By Vanity Garcia