Neuromuscular junction with a mechanical output
Abstract
Biohybrid robotics, which integrates muscular tissues with synthetic components, offers conventional mechanics enhanced adaptability, self-healing, energy efficiency, and soft actuation, making it a promising platform for future robotic systems. Over the past decade, muscle-powered biohybrid systems have successfully mimicked motile behaviors of living organisms, such as walking, swimming, and crawling. While these systems exhibit precise control under direct electrical and optical stimulation, they still underperform compared to conventional mechanical systems due to weak mechanical forces, requiring external stimulation, and lack of automation. Recent studies have shown that neuron-innervated muscles provide superior actuation performance and stability, owing to the reciprocal interaction between myotubes and neurons. However, despite these biological interactions, questions remain regarding the neuronal control of muscle actuation, which is inherently regulated by neuronal motor units through chemical synapses. To address these questions, we introduce a neuromuscular biohybrid robotic platform that integrates skeletal muscle with stem cell-derived neurospheres. These neural units are genetically encoded with light-gated ion channels, enabling modulation of neuronal activity via optical stimulation. By incorporating on-board optoelectronics, neural activity can be easily modulated wirelessly, resulting in tuned neuromuscular actuation in specific patterns. In the experiment, we confirmed that the tuned neuromuscular actuation persists up to 20 minutes without stimulation. The automated actuation modes can be altered depending on the input stimulation, modulating neuronal activity. This biohybrid model allows deeper exploration of neuromodulation and the coupling between neural activity and muscular function, offering valuable insights into the development of intelligent, adaptive machines controlled by future Mind-in-Vitro neural architectures.
Bio
Dr. Hyegi Min is a postdoctoral researcher at the Nick Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He works in Professor Rashid Bashir’s group, focusing on the development of tissue-engineered biohybrid systems based on neuromuscular junctions. Dr. Min received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in 2021. He then joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, as a research professor. His previous research focused on low-dimensional carbon nanomaterials, nanopore-based detection of individual ions and molecules, heterogeneous catalysis, and metal-oxide-semiconductor gas sensors.
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