In a recently published study, researchers from three Swedish universities built the neurons from polymers that can carry electrical signals to cells in the Venus flytrap that regulate the mouth of the carnivorous plant.
A report from the Daily Beast specified that scientists are constantly on the lookout for strategies to incorporate technology with nature. It appears they may have struck a nerve by developing an actual nerve.
Specifically, Swedish scientists have engineered an artificial neuron that can regulate the snapping of a living Venus flytrap. A brand-new development with inferences for future studies associating artificial, synthetic tools with biological systems like brain-machine interface Neuralink of Elon Musk, or bionic prosthetics.
According to study author Simone Fabiano, a researcher in organic nanoelectronics at Linkoping University, they used Venus flytraps "as a model system" to demonstrate the bio integration of their artificial neurons. He added Venus flytraps are easy to manage, and as an initial demonstration, they represented an easy option.
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A Ph.D. student attaches an electrode on the surface of a Venus flytrap plant at a laboratory in Singapore as scientists develop a high-tech system for communicating with vegetation.
Venus Flytraps
Whereas Venus flytraps, as well as other plants, do not have nerves like other animals and humans, these species can generate electrical impulses known as action potentials that humans' neurons are using to convey
While Venus flytraps and other plants don't have nerves like humans and other animals, they can generate electrical impulses called action potentials that our neurons use to send information to neural neighbors in the spinal cord and brain.
Fabianos' team ran a current through the "dendrite" of the artificial neuron to emulate an action potential and get the plant species to snap its lobes. Dendrite is a tree-like end of a nerve cell, acting as a receiving bay for arriving information.
The current then is transported to a device storing electrical charge known as a capacitor and functions as the cell body of the neuron.
Fabiano explained the voltage begins building until it reaches a particular threshold, following which a voltage pulse is fired "as an output signal." Amplifiers at the tail end of the neuron increase as well, the signal's magnitude as zapped to the Venus flytrap's cells.
'Hebbian Learning'
Other than controlling the snap of the Venus flytrap, the artificial neuron showed too that it was capable of Hebbian learning, a commonly accepted theory in neuroscience that information in a neural network is stored in the form of weights between neurons.
Stronger stimulation results in greater weight changes and vice versa, leading to more robust or weaker neural links. Also, according to Fabiano, Hebbian learning, which is detailed in ScienceDirect, "is well known to scientists," although it has been difficult to simulate at the hardware level.
Nonetheless, the research team managed to reach this feat by building an artificial version of a synapse, the juncture found in the middle of two nerve cells where the information is transferred, that's thickening over time.
As indicated in the study published in Nature Communications, such thickening strengthens the electric impulse that passes through the synapse, enabling information to be stored in the chemical bonds of the synapse over time.
Related information about the link between Venus flytrap and brain is shown on BrainCraft's YouTube video below:
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