Piezoelectric materials, i.e., those materials able to convert mechanical into electrical energy and vice versa, have found extremely wide applications in the fields of robotics, energy conversion, and medicine. Scaling down to the "nano" world, piezoelectric materials have attracted strong interest in nanomedicine as nanotransducers able to act at the tissue, cellular, and sub-cellular level. Applications of "smart" piezoelectric nanomaterials are particularly appealing for all electrically excitable structures of an organism, starting from the nervous tissue. Here, we summarize the most recent evidences and the most exciting perspectives that the piezoelectric transduction approach provides in the field of neuronal stimulation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.