Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip

from The Discovery Channel

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size. They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells onto the chip. The proteins also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers. But for now, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.