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Abstract

The extracellular electrical interfacing of nerve cells with metals or semiconductors is governed by the resistance of the cell-solid junction. With snail neurons on a CMOS chip, we have probed the thermal voltage fluctuations in the junction at a spatial resolution of 7.4 mu m in a spectral range from 10 Hz to 1 MHz using an array of sensor transistors. The power spectral density (PSD) could be interpreted in terms of a Johnson-Nyquist noise if the distributed nature of the cell-solid junction and the size of the sensors were taken into account. The PSD over the whole spectral range as well as its spatial profile were matched by the thermal noise of a circular core-coat conductor with a homogeneous sheet resistance in the range of 100 M Omega. The quantitative interpretation of the thermal noise in a cell-solid junction provides a basis for applications of this noninvasive method in the characterization of biosensoric and neuroprosthetic devices.