Neuromorphic technology has several applications, ranging from pattern recognition to robotics. One of the most interesting application domain is neural prosthetics. This is a fascinating twist on the idea of “borrowing” from biology: designing chips inspired by the nervous systems, which are then implanted back in a living organism to restore lost functions.

Ralph Etienne-Cummings, from Johns Hopkins University, was recently a guest at ICCNS 2010 in Boston, where he gave a very interesting overview of the state of the art in neuromorphic computing. In their lab, they design biologically Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) technology used to extract information about the environment, study how these systems can be hosted onto robots, and develop brain-machine interfaces and neural prosthesis devices, specifically spinal and cortical prosthesis devices and robotic systems to restore function after injury and for human augmentation.

Ralph is on CNN, explaining how neuromorphic chips mimicking locomotion can one day help patients regain their ability to walk. The video is available here.