The brain appears as operating through the joint action of very large assemblies of neurons and by involving signaling occurring over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, i.e. from molecules and cells, up to entire brain circuits. However, present-day neurotechnologies typically miss the recording of a large number of single-neurons simultaneously.
This has resulted in fundamental bottlenecks in understanding how neural assemblies operate and are organized at the microscale; in unravelling early processes underlying brain diseases and in progressing with the development of effective neurotechnologies for clinical neuroprosthetics, for neuro-pharmacological/toxicological screenings as well as for deriving brain-inspired artificial ICTs.
To face this challenge NetS3 Lab is converging a multidisciplinary research effort where scientists in neuroscience, engineering, biophysics and computational R&D work in synergy on the development and experimental use of platforms integrating novel generations of sensing devices realized with microelectronics, micro-/nano-structuring and biotechnologies.
The NetS3 ‘s strategic plan develops within the IIT BrainTech program (2015-2019) and through several collaborations with other IIT laboratories as well as international collaboration schemes with academic and industrial entities.