Engineers Have Created Artificial Synapses That Mimic the Human Brain

Some scientists suggest that, instead of working on artificial intelligence that functions better than the human brain, we should be making computers like the brain. We may well be on this path after engineers from University of Massachusetts Amherst demonstrated devices that emulate the behavior of the brain's synapses. Their device uses "memristors,' components whose resistance relies on how much charge has passed through them in the past. That means they have the ability to store and process information, and have some characteristics that make them better than traditional integrated circuits. These memristors have been used before, but what makes this study unique is that two different kinds of memristors are being combined to better emulate the brain. On their own, memristors have been made to mimic synapses, using electrical fields. But these are based on physical processes, not biological ones. When used with diffusion-type memristors, however, the whole set up becomes more like how a regular synapse fires up. "In the past, people have used devices like transistors and capacitors to simulate synaptic dynamics, which can work, but those devices have very little resemblance to real biological systems.