For decades, scientists have dreamed of building computer systems that could replicate¹（复制，折叠） the human brain's talent for learning new tasks. MIT researchers have now taken a major step toward that goal by designing a computer chip that mimics³ how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information. This phenomenon, known as plasticity, is believed to underlie⁴ many brain functions, including learning and memory.

With about 400 transistors⁵, the silicon⁶ chip can simulate the activity of a single brain synapse⁷ -- a connection between two neurons that allows information to flow from one to the other. The researchers anticipate this chip will help neuroscientists learn much more about how the brain works, and could also be used in neural⁸ prosthetic devices（假肢器官） such as artificial retinas, says Chi-Sang Poon, a principal research scientist in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Poon is the senior author of a paper describing the chip in the Proceedings⁹ of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Nov. 14. Guy Rachmuth, a former postdoc in Poon's lab, is lead author of the paper. Other authors are Mark Bear, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, and Harel Shouval of the University of Texas Medical School.

Modeling synapses¹⁰

There are about 100 billion neurons in the brain, each of which forms synapses with many other neurons. A synapse is the gap between two neurons (known as the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons). The presynaptic neuron releases neurotransmitters, such as glutamate and GABA, which bind¹¹ to receptors on the postsynaptic cell membrane¹², activating¹³ ion channels. Opening and closing those channels changes the cell's electrical potential. If the potential changes dramatically enough, the cell fires an electrical impulse called an action potential.

All of this synaptic activity depends on the ion channels, which control the flow of charged atoms such as sodium¹⁴, potassium（钾） and calcium¹⁵. Those channels are also key to two processes known as long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD), which strengthen and weaken synapses, respectively.

The MIT researchers designed their computer chip so that the transistors could mimic² the activity of different ion channels. While most chips operate in a binary¹⁶（二进制） , on/off mode, current flows through the transistors on the new brain chip in analog¹⁷, not digital, fashion. A gradient of electrical potential drives current to flow through the transistors just as ions flow through ion channels in a cell.

"We can tweak（扭） the parameters¹⁸ of the circuit to match specific ion channels," Poon says. "We now have a way to capture each and every ionic process that's going on in a neuron."

Previously¹⁹, researchers had built circuits that could simulate the firing of an action potential, but not all of the circumstances that produce the potentials. "If you really want to mimic brain function realistically, you have to do more than just spiking²⁰. You have to capture the intracellular（细胞内的） processes that are ion channel-based," Poon says.

The new chip represents a "significant advance in the efforts to incorporate what we know about the biology of neurons and synaptic plasticity onto CMOS [complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor] chips," says Dean Buonomano, a professor of neurobiology at the University of California at Los Angeles, adding that "the level of biological realism is impressive.

The MIT researchers plan to use their chip to build systems to model specific neural functions, such as the visual processing system. Such systems could be much faster than digital computers. Even on high-capacity computer systems, it takes hours or days to simulate a simple brain circuit. With the analog chip（模拟芯片） system, the simulation is even faster than the biological system itself.

Another potential application is building chips that can interface²¹ with biological systems. This could be useful in enabling communication between neural prosthetic devices such as artificial retinas and the brain. Further down the road, these chips could also become building blocks for artificial intelligence devices, Poon says.