Chameleon-Like Material Could Mimic Brain Cells
By imitating the way the human brain solves everyday problems, neuromorphic systems could revolutionize big data analysis and pattern recognition problems that can be a challenge for current digital technologies. For artificial systems to be more brain-like, however, they need to replicate how nerve cells communicate at their synapses. Researchers at Texas A&M University say a new material captures the pattern of electrical activity at the synapse. The researchers say their material oscillates from metal to insulator at a transition temperature decided by the device’s thermal history, and that adding small quantities of the element boron to vanadium dioxide makes the material function like a synapse. While this system is an initial step in mimicking a biological synapse, experiments are currently underway to introduce more dynamism in the material’s behavior.
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00:00:00 does modern technology still need a little inspiration from the human brain let's take a look at a cocktail party the brain has absolutely no trouble identifying say the voice of a friend buried in a din of chatter at the party but even for sophisticated digital computers recognizing sounds or patterns within big data can be extraordinarily
00:00:20 challenging scientists at texas a m university are now closer to bringing brain-like computing to silicon chips with their new material just like brain cells fire pulses of oscillating currents called action potentials a compound called vanadium dioxide produces pulses of electric currents
00:00:37 when heated but by adding just a touch of boron to vanadium dioxide researchers have found that these materials can remember how long it took for them to cool down mimicking how neurons remember the electrical activity at their synapsis in the future artificial cells made of vanadium dioxide could even be connected
00:00:55 together to form brain-inspired computational networks that leverage both brain architecture and problem-solving abilities you