Memristor: A Device That Mimics The Brain’s Synaptic Action

A US military-funded project used memristors, a device whose resistance at any moment depends on the last voltage it experienced, to attempt building brain-like computers.

New Scientist explains the project:

The team used a mixture of silicon and silver to join two metal electrodes where they cross. The junction mimics a particular behavior of synapses that allows neurons to learn new firing patterns, and is believed to allow memories to be stored.

In the brain the timing of electrical signals in two neurons affects the ease with which later messages can jump across the synapse between them. If the pair fire in close succession, the synapse becomes more likely to pass subsequent messages between the two.

Wei Lu, who led the project, said that the device displays the same behavior.

When the gap between signals on the two electrodes was 20 milliseconds, the resistance to current flowing between the two was roughly half that after signals separated by 40 milliseconds. The memristor mimics synaptic action.

New Scientist: “Electronics ‘missing link’ brings neural computing closer”