March 14, 2025

Bowen Zhou

12th Grade

St. Francis Preparatory High School

Your brain controls everything you do, from exercise to eating. Your brain is mostly made up of cells called neurons. These are the cells that produce the electrical signals to tell your body what to do. If you want to move your arm, the motor neurons fire electrical signals to tell the body to move your arm. These signals travel super fast, up to 120 meters per second, varying between different types of nerve cells and the axon, which is what transmits information to different neurons and muscles. Neurons are super powerful and capable, they can transmit and collect information incredibly quickly so much so that machine learning is loosely based on neurons and their structure.

Now scientists are trying to create synthetic neurons for the application of organic electronics, such as perception systems. They can also be used for artificial intelligence and boost the ability of neural networks. One way they are produced is by using memristors, they can store a value by modifying their conductance and using that value for processing. 

Researchers at Oxford, IBM Research Europe, and the University of Texas have expanded the functionality of these memristors by making them responsive to optical as well as electrical signals. They announced in 2023,  “the development of atomically thin artificial neurons created by stacking two-dimensional(2D) materials”. By layering it so thinly, and what materials they stack, they can change its conductance by the strength of the light/electricity it is exposed to. These have implications on bettering current neural networks and can deepen our understanding of actual neurons and the brain. 

Scientists from Georgia Tech and Northwestern University have created synthetic neurons that are capable of responding to signals within the frequency of human neurons. It has a range of 50 times broader compared to other synthetic neurons. They also created a perception system to pair with the synthetic neurons they created. They created a “complete neuromorphic tactile perception system based on artificial neurons”. 

This can be used to study to further biomedical research. It can help those with impairment and replace damaged nerve cells. It could help treat diseases like Alzheimer’s and treat those with spinal cord injuries. But it can also be used to further the capabilities of AI, and neural networks.