Tag Archives: Lili Xing

Artificial nose for intelligent olfactory substitution

The signal transmitted into mouse brain can participate in mouse perception and act as the brain stimulator. (Image credit: Prof. ZHAN Yang)

I’m fascinated by the image. Are they suggesting putting implants into people’s brains that can sense dangerous gaseous molecules and convert that into data which can be read on a smartphone? And, are they harvesting bioenergy to supply energy to the implant?

A July 29, 2019 news item on Azonano was not as helpful in answering my questions as I’d hoped (Note: A link has been removed),

An artificial olfactory system based on a self-powered nano-generator has been built by Prof. ZHAN Yang’s team at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [CAS], together with colleagues at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

The device, which can detect a variety of odor molecules and identify different odors, has been demonstrated in vivo in animal models. The research titled “An artificial triboelectricity-brain-behavior closed loop for intelligent olfactory substitution” has been reported in Nano Energy.

A July 25, 2019 CAS press release, which originated the news item, provides a little more information,

Odor processing is important to many species. Specific olfactory receptors located on the neurons are involved in odor recognition. These different olfactory receptors form patterned distribution.

Inspired by the biological receptors, the teams collaborated on formulating an artificial olfactory system. Through nano-fabrication on the soft materials and special alignment of material structures, the teams built a self-power device that can code and differentiate different odorant molecules.

This device has been connected to the mouse brain to demonstrate that the olfactory signals can produce appropriate neural stimulation. When the self-powered device generated the electric currents, the mouse displayed behavioral motion changes.

This study, inspired by the biological olfactory system, provides insights on novel design of neural stimulation and brain-machine interface. 

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

An artificial triboelectricity-brain-behavior closed loop for intelligent olfactory substitution by Tianyan Zhong, Mengyang Zhang, Yongming Fu, Yechao Han, Hongye Guan, Haoxuan He, Tianming Zhao, Lili Xing, Xinyu Xue, Yan Zhang, Yang Zhan.Nano Energy Volume 63, September 2019, 103884 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.103884

This paper is behind a paywall.