A neuroprosthetic system to restore neuronal communication in modular networks

Recent advances in neurotechnology allow neurological impairments to be treated or reduced by brain machine interfaces and neuroprostheses. To develop energy-efficient and real-time capable devices, neuromorphic computing systems are envisaged as the core of next-generation ‘neurobiohybrid’ systems for brain repair. We demonstrate here the first exploitation of a neuromorphic prosthesis to restore bidirectional interactions between two neuronal populations, even when one is damaged or completely missing. We used in vitro modular cell cultures to mimic the mutual interaction between neuronal assemblies and created a focal lesion to functionally disconnect the two populations. Then, we employed our neuromorphic prosthesis for two specific applications with future clinical implications: bidirectional bridging to artificially reconnect two disconnected neuronal modules and hybrid bidirectional bridging to replace the activity of one module with a neuromorphic spiking neural network. Our neuroprosthetic system opens up new avenues for the development of novel bioelectrical therapeutics for human applications.