Stable ion-tunable antiambipolarity in mixed ion-electron conducting polymers enables biorealistic artificial neurons

Bio-integrated neuromorphic systems promise for new protocols to record and regulate the signaling of biological systems. Making such artificial neural circuits successful requires minimal circuit complexity and ion-based operating mechanisms similar to that of biology. However, simple leaky integrate-and-fire model neurons, commonly realized in either silicon or organic semiconductor neuromorphic systems, can emulate only a few neural features. More functional neuron models, based on traditional complex Si-based complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) or negative differential resistance (NDR) device circuits, are complicated to fabricate, not biocompatible, and lack ion- and chemical-based modulation features. Here we report a biorealistic conductance-based organic electrochemical neuron (c-OECN) using a mixed ion-electron conducting ladder-type polymer with reliable ion-tunable antiambipolarity. The latter is used to emulate the activation/inactivation of Na channels and delayed activation of K channels of biological neurons. These c-OECNs can then spike at bioplausible frequencies nearing 100 Hz, emulate most critical biological neural features, demonstrate stochastic spiking, and enable neurotransmitter and Ca2+-based spiking modulation. These combined features are impossible to achieve using previous technologies.