Human Skin as Non-Volatile Memory

hubie writes:

A memristor (memory resistor) is a hypothetical circuit element that, in principle, would make up the fourth basic circuit element joining the resistor, capacitor, and inductor. One of the more interesting properties of an ideal memristor is that there exists a non-liner relationship between the applied voltage and current which gives rise to non-volatile memory behavior. This has resulted in a lot of exciting research in the semiconductor industry for new and improved memory chips.

The hallmark of a memristor is that the non-linear relationship between the electric flux and charge gives rise to a voltage-current plot that exhibits a pinched hysteresis behavior, namely that it looks like a frequency-dependent Lissajous figure that always crosses the plot at the origin. If one takes a step back from solid state devices and defines memristors in terms of this voltage/current behavior, there are a number of biologic-based systems that qualify, including human skin. If skin is a memristor, does that mean that it acts like non-volatile memory? In a new paper published in Nature's open-access journal Scientific Reports, Pabst et al show that this is indeed the case. They applied direct current voltage pulses to various parts of the human skin and show that analog information can be stored for at least three minutes.

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