Engineered functional neural interfaces (fNIs) serve as essential abiotic–biotic transducers between an engineered system and the nervous system. They convert external physical stimuli to cellular signals in stimulation mode or read out biological processes in recording mode. Information can be exchanged using electricity, light, magnetic fields, mechanical forces, heat, or chemical signals. fNIs have found applications for studying processes in neural circuits from cell cultures to organs to whole organisms. fNI-facilitated signal transduction schemes, coupled with easily manipulable and observable external physical signals, have attracted considerable attention in recent years. This enticing field is rapidly evolving toward miniaturization and biomimicry to achieve long-term interface stability with great signal transduction efficiency. Not only has a new generation of neuroelectrodes been invented, but the use of advanced fNIs that explore other physical modalities of neuromodulation and recording has begun to increase. This review covers these exciting developments and applications of fNIs that rely on nanoelectrodes, nanotransducers, or bionanotransducers to establish an interface with the nervous system. These nano fNIs are promising in offering a high spatial resolution, high target specificity, and high communication bandwidth by allowing for a high density and count of signal channels with minimum material volume and area to dramatically improve the chronic integration of the fNI to the target neural tissue. Such demanding advances in nano fNIs will greatly facilitate new opportunities not only for studying basic neuroscience but also for diagnosing and treating various neurological diseases.

工程功能神经接口（fNI）是工程系统和神经系统之间必不可少的非生物－生物传感器。它们在刺激模式下将外部物理刺激转换为细胞信号，或在记录模式下读出生物过程。可以使用电，光，磁场，机械力，热或化学信号交换信息。fNI已发现可用于研究从细胞培养到器官再到整个有机体的神经回路中的过程。近年来，fNI促进的信号转导方案以及易于操作和观察的外部物理信号引起了相当大的关注。这个诱人的领域正在迅速朝着小型化和仿生发展，以实现长期的界面稳定性以及极高的信号传导效率。不仅发明了新一代的神经电极，而且探索神经调节和记录的其他物理方式的先进fNI的使用也开始增加。这篇综述涵盖了fNIs的令人激动的发展和应用，这些fNIs依赖于纳米电极，纳米换能器或bionanotransducers建立与神经系统的接口。这些纳米fNI通过允许以最小的材料体积和面积实现高密度和信号通道数量，从而显着改善fNI与目标神经的长期整合，有望提供高空间分辨率，高目标特异性和高通信带宽。组织。