Fig. 2: Constructed artificial neurons and performance.

a Circuit diagram of the artificial neuron. b Different stages in neuronal output. (i) The artificial neuron undergoes atomic integration in the filament of the memristor, emulating the (subthreshold) charge integration for eliciting an action potential. (ii) The turned-on memristor leads to rapid charging to the capacitor, emulating the broad opening of Na⁺ channels for fast depolarization. (iii) The charged capacitor imposes a reverse bias on the memristor to turn it off and discharges through the resistor, emulating the self-regulated closure of Na⁺ channels and opening of K⁺ channels for repolarization. c A representative output from a constructed artificial neuron. The input was a series of pulses (120 mV, 5 ms) with a frequency of 100 Hz. d Zoom-in firing features from the dashed box in (c). e The output firing frequency (f_o) in an artificial neuron with respect to the input frequency (f_i). f The firing frequency with respect to the capacitor value used. The input frequency was fixed at 100 Hz. Data in (e) and (f) are presented as mean values  ±  SD (error bar).