This sub-project of the OVGU graduate school TACTIC (Towards co-evolution in human-technology interfaces), conducted at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN), deals with interactive neuroprostheses for sensory cortices for the rehabilitation of impaired or lost sensory perception. Unlike peripheral sensory structures (such as the auditory nerve), sensory cortices are spontaneously active neuronal structures. Cortical sensory neuroprostheses can therefore not regard their neuronal substrate as a “passive receiver” for information to be fed in (as is the case with cochlear implants, for example), but must enter into a kind of dialog with an already endogenously “active communication partner”. In this subproject, basic strategies for establishing and conducting this dialog between an active brain (using mechanisms of learning-induced neuronal plasticity) and an adaptive neuroprosthesis (next-generation neuroprosthesis), that is capable of reading and writing operations, are being developed. The mutually interrelated activity of the two adaptive communication partners leads to co-evolution between brain and neuroprosthesis as a novel functional principle for cortical sensory neuroprostheses

The aim of the present project is to develop perfusion units including sensors. In these bioreactors complex tissue models, especially of the thorax, must be cultured and characterized non-invasively. After the technology has been standardized, relevant biomarkers will be identified in the long term to enable co-evolution between tissue and implant. The challenge lies in the development of intelligent implants that react to environmental factors in the sense of co-evolution, for example with the release of steroids in the event of inflammation.