1,693 research outputs found
Feedforward Architectures Driven by Inhibitory Interactions
Directed information transmission is paramount for many social, physical, and biological systems. For neural systems, scientists have studied this problem under the paradigm of feedforward networks for decades. In most models of feedforward networks, activity is exclusively driven by excitatory neurons and the wiring patterns between them, while inhibitory neurons play only a stabilizing role for the network dynamics. Motivated by recent experimental discoveries of hippocampal circuitry, cortical circuitry, and the diversity of inhibitory neurons throughout the brain, here we illustrate that one can construct such networks even if the connectivity between the excitatory units in the system remains random. This is achieved by endowing inhibitory nodes with a more active role in the network. Our findings demonstrate that apparent feedforward activity can be caused by a much broader network-architectural basis than often assumed
A feedback model of visual attention
Feedback connections are a prominent feature of cortical anatomy and are likely
to have significant functional role in neural information processing. We present
a neural network model of cortical feedback that successfully simulates
neurophysiological data associated with attention. In this domain our model can
be considered a more detailed, and biologically plausible, implementation of the
biased competition model of attention. However, our model is more general as it
can also explain a variety of other top-down processes in vision, such as
figure/ground segmentation and contextual cueing. This model thus suggests that
a common mechanism, involving cortical feedback pathways, is responsible for a
range of phenomena and provides a unified account of currently disparate areas
of research
A half century of progress towards a unified neural theory of mind and brain with applications to autonomous adaptive agents and mental disorders
Invited article for the book
Artificial Intelligence in the Age of
Neural Networks and Brain Computing
R. Kozma, C. Alippi, Y. Choe, and F. C. Morabito, Eds.
Cambridge, MA: Academic PressThis article surveys some of the main design principles, mechanisms, circuits, and architectures that have been discovered during a half century of systematic research aimed at developing a unified theory that links mind and brain, and shows how psychological functions arise as emergent properties of brain mechanisms. The article describes a theoretical method that has enabled such a theory to be developed in stages by carrying out a kind of conceptual evolution. It also describes revolutionary computational paradigms like Complementary Computing and Laminar Computing that constrain the kind of unified theory that can describe the autonomous adaptive intelligence that emerges from advanced brains. Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, is one of the core models that has been discovered in this way. ART proposes how advanced brains learn to attend, recognize, and predict objects and events in a changing world that is filled with unexpected events. ART is not, however, a “theory of everything” if only because, due to Complementary Computing, different matching and learning laws tend to support perception and cognition on the one hand, and spatial representation and action on the other. The article mentions why a theory of this kind may be useful in the design of autonomous adaptive agents in engineering and technology. It also notes how the theory has led to new mechanistic insights about mental disorders such as autism, medial temporal amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and schizophrenia, along with mechanistically informed proposals about how their symptoms may be ameliorated
Learning long-range spatial dependencies with horizontal gated-recurrent units
Progress in deep learning has spawned great successes in many engineering
applications. As a prime example, convolutional neural networks, a type of
feedforward neural networks, are now approaching -- and sometimes even
surpassing -- human accuracy on a variety of visual recognition tasks. Here,
however, we show that these neural networks and their recent extensions
struggle in recognition tasks where co-dependent visual features must be
detected over long spatial ranges. We introduce the horizontal gated-recurrent
unit (hGRU) to learn intrinsic horizontal connections -- both within and across
feature columns. We demonstrate that a single hGRU layer matches or outperforms
all tested feedforward hierarchical baselines including state-of-the-art
architectures which have orders of magnitude more free parameters. We further
discuss the biological plausibility of the hGRU in comparison to anatomical
data from the visual cortex as well as human behavioral data on a classic
contour detection task.Comment: Published at NeurIPS 2018
https://papers.nips.cc/paper/7300-learning-long-range-spatial-dependencies-with-horizontal-gated-recurrent-unit
Reconciling Predictive Coding and Biased Competition Models of Cortical Function
A simple variation of the standard biased competition model is shown, via some trivial mathematical manipulations, to be identical to predictive coding. Specifically, it is shown that a particular implementation of the biased competition model, in which nodes compete via inhibition that targets the inputs to a cortical region, is mathematically equivalent to the linear predictive coding model. This observation demonstrates that these two important and influential rival theories of cortical function are minor variations on the same underlying mathematical model
Formal Systems Architectures for Biology
When the word "systems" is used in systems biology, it invokes a variety of assumptions about what defines the subject under investigation, which in turn can lead to divergent research outcomes. We will take the position that systems are defined by their potential organizing and "control" mechanisms, 
which distinguishes complex, living systems from a primordial soup. This will be accomplished by defining and investigating three interesting control motifs in biological systems: dominoes and clocks, futile cycles, and complex feedforward regulation. Additional mechanisms that combine feedback and feedforward mechanisms will also be briefly elaborated upon. Throughout these examples, our focus will be on the connection between top-down control mechanisms and bottom-up self-organizing mechanisms
Linking Visual Development and Learning to Information Processing: Preattentive and Attentive Brain Dynamics
National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0657
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