NOTE: This message was originally in conference "INTERNET - E-MAIL AREA"
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From:         Clem Padin 
To:           Multiple recipients of list POLIO 
Date:         Wed, 9 Aug 1995 11:27:35 EDT
Subject:      fyi - computer interface to nerve cells
 
Date sent:  9-AUG-1995 11:04:15
 
        Found this item in this weeks issue of Physics News Update and 
hought
some on the list might find it interesting.  I'm not a member of the list, so
if you want any extra info, send me mail directly.
 
Clem
 --------------------------------
| Clem Padin                     |
| PADINCX@LLDMPC.DNET.DUPONT.COM |
| Dupont Merck Pharmaceutical Co.|
| Dupont Experimental Station    |
| Wilmington, Delaware           |
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>From:  ESDS01::"physnews@aip.org" "AIP listserver"  7-AUG-1995 22:49:34.79
>To:    physnews-mailing@aip.org
>CC:
>Subj:  update.236
>
>
>PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
>The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
>Number 236  August 7, 1995        by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben
>Stein
>
>A SILICON DEVICE FOR TRIGGERING ELECTRICAL
>ACTIVITY IN A NERVE CELL has been constructed, opening
>possibilities for two-way, non-toxic communication between computer
>chips and nerve cells.   Previous devices for stimulating nerve cells
>were metallic devices generating ordinary electric currents.   Not only
>do such devices have corrosion-prone electrodes, but their currents
>create electrochemical byproducts and heat that could damage the
>nerve cells and themselves.  The silicon device, constructed by
>researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany,
>contains a "stimulation spot" that triggers neural activity simply
>through the rearrangement of electric charge.  Insulated by silicon
>oxide, the stimulation spot has a size (between 10 and 50 microns)
>matched to that of a leech nerve cell to which it is connected.  A
>voltage pulse applied to the spot rearranges electric charge on the
>silicon oxide film and the insulating membrane of the nerve cell,
>creating a buildup of positive charge in the nerve cell which causes
>it to fire above a certain threshold.  The silicon device is capable of
>triggering a single nerve cell without affecting other nearby neurons.
>The device complements the previously designed "neuron transistor,"
>which receives ionic signals from nerve cells and transcribes them to
>electronic signals in silicon.  "These two devices join the two worlds
>of information processing, the silicon world of the computer and the
>water-world of the brain," says the Max Planck Institute's Peter
>>Fromherz (fromherz@vms.biochem.mpg.de).  Developing this device
>for biomedical applications, such as computer-controlled artificial
>limbs, is not envisioned at the present moment, as researchers will
>first need to build and understand devices that interact with connective
>tissue and other non-neuronal cells in the body.  (Peter Fromherz and
>Alfred Stett, upcoming article in Physical Review Letters; text and
>figures are available from AIP Public Information, 301-209-3091,
>physnews@aip.org.)
>
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