All of the subjects you mention at the end of your comment, especially memristors, are indeed the focus of neuromorphic computing. It's a nascent technology field, but there are plenty of papers available on IEEExplore or ACM Digital Library to satisfy curiosity! I'll take a look at the survey paper I wrote a couple summers back-- if it's decent I'll edit this post with a link.
Edit, links: Paper: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7QHR9a8j1iiU3RxSHZSNFh2cEdv... Slides: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7QHR9a8j1iiSE1ET2ZTb09aNFBP...