To churn out something that is synthetic, it will certainly require plenty of study of the original material in question. Good thing that modern science and technology has not failed in this matter where we have synthetic rubber, synthetic cloth, and the ilk just in case our natural resources start to run out. How about a synthetic brain then, you ask? Well, the brain’s a whole lot more complicated than just creating material, but recently a breakthrough has occured with the creation of an artificial synapse, making mankind one step closer to a synthetic brain.
Of course, it will still be quite some time before an autonomous, self-aware android is developed thanks to such synthetic brains, but researchers from the University of Southern California are on their way there thanks to the development of a functioning synapse circuit through the use of carbon nanotubes. An artificial version of the connections will enable electrical impulses to pass between neurons in our brains, and this could one fine day form the component of a synthetic brain.
The circuit comprises of highly-aligned carbon nanotubes which prior to that have been grown on a quartz wafer, followed by a transfer over to a silicon substrate. This will mimic an actual synapse whenever waveforms are sent to it, and it will also result in a successful output that resembles biological waveforms in shape, relative amplitudes and durations. The one million dollar question remains – how can we build a real brain that has 100 billion neurons and 10,000 synapses into so small a size?
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