Coupling Resistive Switching Devices with Neurons: State of the Art and Perspectives

Here we provide the state-of-the-art of bioelectronic interfacing between biological neuronal systems and artificial components, focusing the attention on the potentiality offered by intrinsically neuromorphic synthetic devices based on Resistive Switching (RS). Neuromorphic engineering is outside the scopes of this Perspective. Instead, our focus is on those materials and devices featuring genuine physical effects that could be sought as non-linearity, plasticity, excitation, and extinction which could be directly and more naturally coupled with living biological systems. In view of important applications, such as prosthetics and future life augmentation, a cybernetic parallelism is traced, between biological and artificial systems. We will discuss how such intrinsic features could reduce the complexity of conditioning networks for a more natural direct connection between biological and synthetic worlds. Putting together living systems with RS devices could represent a feasible though innovative perspective for the future of bionics.