Nanofluidic Confined DNA Aptamers for Neuromorphic Multiplex Discrimination

Area of Science:

• Biomimetic Nanotechnology
• Neuromorphic Engineering
• Molecular Computing

Background:

• Nanofluidic systems using ions show potential for neural processing.
• Current systems struggle with parallel processing of multiple biochemical signals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a neuromorphic signal processing platform using DNA aptamer-functionalized nanofluidic systems.
• To enable parallel, brain-like processing of multiple biochemical signals.

Main Methods:

• Constructed an artificial postsynaptic membrane (APM) with confined DNA aptamers in nanochannels.
• Utilized target-induced DNA aptamer conformational switching to modulate ionic transport.
• Integrated cross-responsive APM units into a cascaded logic system for signal processing.

Main Results:

• Achieved dynamic modulation of ionic transport mimicking synaptic transmission.
• Enabled dendritic multi-input integration and information fusion at the signal-algorithm level.
• Demonstrated 100% accurate discrimination of multiple targets without physical series networks.

Conclusions:

• This approach shifts from "one-probe-one-target" to brain-inspired multitarget recognition.
• Fusion of DNA probes with nanofluidic logic enables integrated processing for multiplexed signals.
• Paves the way for neuromorphic biochips with advanced processing capabilities.