Receiver Design for a Bionic Nervous System: Modeling the Dendritic Processing Power

Abstract—Intrabody nanonetworks for nervous system monitoring are envisioned as a key application of the Internet of Nano-Things paradigm, with the aim of developing radically new medical diagnosis and treatment techniques. Indeed, very recently, bionic devices have been implanted inside a living human brain as innovative treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy. In this context, this paper proposes a systems-theoretic communication model to capture the actual behavior of biological neurons. Specifically, biological neurons exhibit physical extension due to their projections called dendrites, that propagate the electrochemical stimulation received via synapses to the soma. Experimental evidences show that the dendrites exhibit two main features: i) the compartmentalization at the level of the dendritic branches of the neuronal processes; ii) the locationdependent preference for different frequencies. Stemming from these experimental evidences, we propose to model the dendritic tree as ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: IOTJ
• Authors: Angela Sara Cacciapuoti, Marcello Caleffi
• Keywords: IOTJ 2016