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40 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2025 • Restorative BCIs: Devices to help individ- uals with paralysis control external devices like robotic arms or computers using brain signals. • Cognitive enhancement: BCIs that augment memory, focus, or other cognitive functions. • Neurorehabilitation: Closed-loop systems that facilitate neural recovery aer strokes or spinal cord injuries. • Human-machine interfaces: UHDI enables precise control systems for operating machinery or vehicles through brain signals. • Mental health interventions: Devices that stimulate specific brain regions to treat depression, anxiety, or PTSD. UHDI technology holds the potential to revo- lutionize neurotechnology by enabling high- density, low-power, and reliable devices for a wide range of applications, from advanced BCIs to neural prosthetics and neurostimula- tion. UHDI's contributions to neurotechnology and BCIs are transformative, enabling smaller, smarter, and more capable devices that bring us closer to achieving seamless integration between humans and machines. ese advances promise to redefine medicine, rehabilitation, and human-machine interaction. DESIGN007 Anaya Vardya is president and CEO of American Standard Circuits; co-author of The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to… Fundamentals of RF/Microwave PCBs and Flex and Rigid-Flex Fundamentals. He is the author of Thermal Management: A Fabricator's Perspective, The Companion Guide to Flex, Rigid-Flex Fundamentals, and The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to DFM Essentials . Visit I-007eBooks.com to download these and other free, educational titles. Artificially engineered biological processes, such as perception systems, remain an elusive target for organic electronics experts due to the reliance of human senses on an adaptive network of sensory neurons, which communicate by firing in response to environmental stimuli. A new collaboration between Northwestern Univer- sity and Georgia Tech has unlocked new potential for the field by creating a novel high-performance organic electrochemical neuron that responds within the fre- quency range of human neurons. They also built a com- plete perception system by designing other organic materials and integrating their engineered neurons with artificial touch receptors and synapses, which enabled real-time tactile signal sensing and processing. The research, described in a paper published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could move the nee- dle on intelligent robots and other systems currently stymied by sensing systems that are less powerful than those of a human. According to corresponding author Tobin J. Marks, Northwestern's Charles E. and Emma H. Mor- rison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg Col- lege of Arts and Sciences, existing artificial neural circuits tend to fire within a narrow frequency range. Marks is a world leader in the fields of organome- tallic chemistry, chemical catalysis, materials science, organic electronics, photovoltaics and nanotechnol- ogy. He is also a professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemical and Biologi- cal Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and as Professor of Applied Physics. With the human brain's immense network of 86 bil- lion neurons poised to fire, sensing systems remain difficult to recreate. Scientists are limited by both the footprint of the design and by the amount they can create. In future models, the team hopes to further reduce the device's size, taking the project a step closer to fully mimicking human sensing systems. Source: Northwestern University Scientists 'Mimic Real Biological Processes' Using Synthetic Neurons