Researchers in the Säo Paulo University’s Physics Department have successfully connected a group of 11 neurons from a blue crab’s mouth parts to a computer, allowing them to control the movements of the crabs mouth parts via electrical signals. By learning more about how to replicate the function of the crustaceans’ neurons, the researchers hope to be able to someday build a giant, samba-dancing, capoira-kicking robotic crab walker with which to impose a Brazilian dominance over the entirety of mankind. Or they want to build prosthetic arms for humans; I forget which.
Our Brazilian counterpart Ricardo Infernauta provides a rough translation after the jump.
From the USP Newswire.
Researchers from the Säo Paulo’s University Physics Dept.successfully connected a group of neurons (NEUR NIOS!) from a blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) to a computer, that replaces their electric activity. Hopefully, in a near future, damaged sectors of the brain might be substituted by electronic prosthetics, benefiting tetraplegic or paraplegic people. The research is been conducted in the Non-Linear Phenomena Laboratory (LFNL) and is coordinated by professor Reynaldo Daniel Pinto, responsible by the research on “Non-Linear Dynamics in Biological-Neural-Networks”. The experiments use a group of 11 neurons related to a group that controls the “chewing” movements of the crustacean. The good professor explains that this circuit is part of the stomatogastric nervous system of the blue crab, that has nearly 30 neurons.
The circuit is responsible by the rhythmic and synchronized contraction (erotico!) of several muscles in the animal’s stomach. If the communication with the upper nervous centres is severed, or if a neurons is destroyed, the whole system stops working and the remaining ones start giving out random signals “We are using a artificial neuron to re-establish the working of the system”, says the researcher. To create the hybrid circuit, the crab (TEH CRAB) is dissected and part of his nervous system is placed on a structure adapted to the microscope. The researchers attach electrodes to one of the neurons, that, connected to a booster (signal-amplifier), allow to measure the neuron’s signal and inject electrical currents. The computer, that is simulating the artificial neuron, reads the signals collected by the amplifier and builds artificial synapses (bridges. not big ones. tiny electrical ones.).
Pulses from the electrical current are injected in the artificial neuron and the biological neuron, re-establishing the regular network functions. The software needed for reading the signals and synapse production, initially developed by Daniel Pinto was improved by Marcelo Bussotti Reyes. Today, the software allows to read and connect up to 8 bio-neurons and a artificial one at the same time. Daniel Pinto started his studies with biological-neural-networks with californian lobsters (Panulirus interruptus) during his PHD at California University, San Diego. Probaby he couldn’t get a gf there.
Back to Brazil, he followed the research, using the blue crab (TEH CRAB!). Initially, the professor built a electronic circuit that could simulate the activity of a network of 3 neurons. “Now, using a direct computer-linkage, it is easier to modify the parameters to achieve a model to better simulate what a biological neuron does.” According to the researcher, the blue crab (TEH CRAB!) is used because he is not expensive and the functioning of his cells is similar to the one of the vertebrates.
“Another advantage is that several hours after the dissection, the neural circuit of the crustacean keeps producing the same signals it did when alive.”
