Bio-Microelectronic Information Processing Device Consisting of Natural Neurons on a CMOS Microsystem

We report on the system integration of a CMOS chip that is capable of bidirectionally communicating (stimulation and recording) with electrogenic cells such as neurons or cardiomyocytes, and that is targeted at investigating electrical signal propagation within cellular networks in vitro. Experiments including the stimulation of neurons with two different spatio-temporal patterns and the recording of the triggered spiking activity have been carried out. The neuronal response patterns have been successfully classified (83% correct classifications) with respect to the different stimulation patterns.