---
title: "Artificial and Biological Neurons Just Talked Over the Internet"
description: "A team of scientists built a neural net that connected artificial brain cells to living biological ones, which signalled back and forth over the internet."
date: "2020-02-26"
modified: "2020-02-26"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/artificial-biological-neurons-talked-internet"
categories:
  - "Brain"
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Neuroscience and Brain"
tags:
  - "artificial neurons"
  - "brain computer interface"
  - "neuroscience"
---

# Artificial and Biological Neurons Just Talked Over the Internet

![A team of scientists built a neural net that connected artificial brain cells to living biological ones, which signalled back and forth over the internet.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/artificial-biological-neurons-talked-internet.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

For the first time, scientists have engineered and switched on a working neural net that allows biological and silicon-based artificial brain cells to communicate back and forth.

Researchers in Switzerland, Italy, and the U.K. connected a series of neurons: two [high-tech artificial neurons](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientists-build-artificial-brain-cells>) and one biological neuron cultured from a mouse's brain, that were able to communicate back and forth over the internet in a highly similar way to how neurons pass along signals in the brain.

The research, [published Tuesday](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-58831-9#Bib1>) in the journal *Scientific Reports*, is in its early days. After all, one mouse neuron in a petri dish is hardly the same as an internet-connected human brain. That cell is housed in a lab at Italy's University of Padova, from which it signals back and forth with the artificial neurons at University of Zurich via University of Southampton-build nodes called synaptors, named after synapses, the connections between individual brain cells.

For now, it's a simple network. But, it could be an important first step toward smarter and more adaptive prosthetics and brain-computer interfaces — and potentially lay the groundwork for a world where neural implants create [real brain networks](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/neuralink-suicide-human-mind>).

"On one side it sets the basis for a novel scenario that was never encountered during natural evolution, where biological and artificial neurons are linked together and communicate across global networks; laying the foundations for the Internet of Neuro-electronics," Themis Prodromakis, a nanotechnology researcher and director at the University of Southampton's Centre for Electronics Frontiers [said in a press release](<https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/02/brain-artificial-neurons.page>).

"On the other hand, it brings new prospects to neuroprosthetic technologies, paving the way towards research into replacing dysfunctional parts of the brain with AI chips."

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)