Synthetic Cerebellum In humans the cerebellum sits
at the back of the brain and fields stimuli from the
brain stem. Researchers at Tel Aviv University
have devised and electronic chip capable of
replacing the cerebellum in rats, a development
that could lead to electronic brain implants
that can replace damaged nerve tissue in
humans. Life Science Databases via Wikimedia
The team’s synthetic cerebellum is more or less a simple microchip, but can receive sensory input from the brainstem, interpret that nerve input, and send the appropriate signal to a different region of the brainstem to initiate the appropriate movement. Right now it is only capable of dealing with the most basic stimuli/response sequence, but the very fact that researchers can do such a thing marks a pretty remarkable leap forward.
To achieve such a breakthrough, the cerebellum was a pretty ideal place to start. Its architecture is simple enough and one of its functions is to orchestrate motor movements in response to stimuli, making it easy enough to test. Using what they already knew about the way a rat’s cerebellum interacts with its brainstem to generate motion, they built a chip that mimicked that kind of neural processing and activity.
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