The Ability of MEAs Containing Cultured Neuroglial Networks to Process Information
The Ability of MEAs Containing Cultured Neuroglial Networks to Process Information
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DOI：
10.2174/1574893611106020199
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发表时间：
2011-06-01
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Porto-Pazos, Ana B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Alvarellos, Alberto;Veiguela, Noha;Porto-Pazos, Ana B.
人类神经系统的研究是一项艰巨的任务。原因是它非常复杂，而且它是生物体的内部。神经系统不仅由神经元网络组成，还由构成神经胶质系统的不同类型的细胞组成。星形胶质细胞是胶质细胞的一种，传统上被认为是被动的、支持性的细胞。然而，最近通过神经科学技术的使用，证明星形胶质细胞积极参与突触信息的处理和调节，这表明大脑功能源于神经元-神经胶质网络的活动。最近使用人工智能(AI)技术的研究表明，将人工星形胶质细胞添加到人工神经网络(ANN)中，此类网络在分类任务中的有效性显著提高。目前，星形胶质细胞在神经网络功能中的实际影响在很大程度上还不清楚。因此，我们的团队越来越重视星形胶质细胞对大脑信息处理的影响的研究，基于多电极阵列(MEA)的使用，使用了一个相当不同的角度。这代表了一种混合方法，因为它结合了生物组件(培养细胞)、硬件技术(MEAS)和人工智能(基于人工智能技术的计算机模拟来控制系统)。考虑到这一点，本文的目的是对含有MEA的神经细胞的使用现状进行综述。本文旨在对这些设备的适用性进行初步的理论分析，以实现上述未来目标，即融合生物信息学、微/纳米技术和人工智能技术来研究这些复杂的系统。
The study of the nervous system of human beings is an arduous task. The reasons are that it is very complex and it is internal to the organism. The nervous system is comprised not only of neuronal networks but also of different types of cells that constitute the glial system. Astrocytes, a type of glial cells, have traditionally been considered as passive, supportive cells. However, through the use of neuroscientific techniques, it has recently been demonstrated that astrocytes are actively involved in the processing and regulation of synaptic information, suggesting that brain function arises from the activity of neuron-glia networks. Also in recent studies employing artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, it has been shown that adding artificial astrocytes to Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), the effectiveness of such networks in classification tasks is markedly improved. At present, the actual impact of astrocytes in neural network function is largely unknown. Therefore, our group is placing increasing emphasis on the study of the influence that astrocytes may have on brain information processing using a rather different perspective based on the use of multielectrode arrays (MEAs). This represents a hybrid approach given that it combines a biological component (cultured cells), hardware technology (MEAs), and AI (computer simulations based on AI techniques to control the system). With this in mind, the objective of this paper is to present a review of the state of the art in the use of MEAs containing nerve cells. This review is intended as a preliminary theoretical analysis on the suitability of these devices to achieve the aforementioned future goal of fusing bioinformatics, micro/nano-technologies, and AI techniques to study these complex systems.