171,766 research outputs found
Rhythmic Representations: Learning Periodic Patterns for Scalable Place Recognition at a Sub-Linear Storage Cost
Robotic and animal mapping systems share many challenges and characteristics:
they must function in a wide variety of environmental conditions, enable the
robot or animal to navigate effectively to find food or shelter, and be
computationally tractable from both a speed and storage perspective. With
regards to map storage, the mammalian brain appears to take a diametrically
opposed approach to all current robotic mapping systems. Where robotic mapping
systems attempt to solve the data association problem to minimise
representational aliasing, neurons in the brain intentionally break data
association by encoding large (potentially unlimited) numbers of places with a
single neuron. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on supervised
learning techniques that seeks out regularly repeating visual patterns in the
environment with mutually complementary co-prime frequencies, and an encoding
scheme that enables storage requirements to grow sub-linearly with the size of
the environment being mapped. To improve robustness in challenging real-world
environments while maintaining storage growth sub-linearity, we incorporate
both multi-exemplar learning and data augmentation techniques. Using large
benchmark robotic mapping datasets, we demonstrate the combined system
achieving high-performance place recognition with sub-linear storage
requirements, and characterize the performance-storage growth trade-off curve.
The work serves as the first robotic mapping system with sub-linear storage
scaling properties, as well as the first large-scale demonstration in
real-world environments of one of the proposed memory benefits of these
neurons.Comment: Pre-print of article that will appear in the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Letter
Bio-inspired 0.35μm CMOS Time-to-Digital Converter with 29.3ps LSB
Time-to-digital converter (TDC) integrated circuit is introduced in this paper. It is based on chain of delay elements composing a regular scalable structure. The scheme is analogous to the sound direction sensitivity nerve system found in barn owl. The circuit occupies small silicon area, and its direct mapping from time to position-code makes conversion rates up to 500Msps possible. Specialty of the circuit is the structural and functional symmetry. Therefore the role of start and stop signals are interchangeable. In other words negative delay is acceptable: the circuit has no dead time problems. These are benefits of the biology model of the auditory scene representation in the bird's brain. The prototype chip is implemented in 0.35μm CMOS having less than 30ps single-shot resolution in the measurements.Hungarian National Research Foundation TS4085
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The Whole Brain Activity Map: Merging Nanoscience and Neuroscience for Technology and Health
The ultimate goal of this project is to construct the functional connectome map of the human brain, by assembling a coordinated network of researchers deploying next—generation nanotechnological tools with unprecedented capabilities. Mapping the functional connectome will unravel the fundamental, long-sought paradigms of how the brain computes. Together with these new technologies, this will enable accurate diagnosing, and restoring, of normal patterns of activity to injured or diseased brains; will foster the development of broader biomedical and environmental applications; and will produce a host of associated economic benefits
Motor Evoked Potentials in Supratentorial Glioma Surgery
Primary brain tumors, that is gliomas, are frequently located close to or within functional motor areas and motor tracts and therefore represent a major neurosurgical challenge. Preservation of the patients’ motor functions, while achieving a maximum resection of tumor, can be only achieved by monitoring and locating motor areas and motor tracts intraoperatively. The intraoperative use of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) represents the current gold standard to do so. However, intraoperative MEP monitoring and mapping can be quite challenging and require a profound knowledge of the MEP technique, brain anatomy and physiology and anesthesia. In this chapter, a systematic review of PubMed listed literature on MEP monitoring and mapping in glioma surgery is presented. The benefits, limitations, technical pearls and pitfalls are discussed from the perspective of an experienced neurosurgical/neurophysiological team
Image quality transfer and applications in diffusion MRI
This paper introduces a new computational imaging technique called image quality transfer (IQT). IQT uses machine learning to transfer the rich information available from one-off experimental medical imaging devices to the abundant but lower-quality data from routine acquisitions. The procedure uses matched pairs to learn mappings from low-quality to corresponding high-quality images. Once learned, these mappings then augment unseen low quality images, for example by enhancing image resolution or information content. Here, we demonstrate IQT using a simple patch-regression implementation and the uniquely rich diffusion MRI data set from the human connectome project (HCP). Results highlight potential benefits of IQT in both brain connectivity mapping and microstructure imaging. In brain connectivity mapping, IQT reveals, from standard data sets, thin connection pathways that tractography normally requires specialised data to reconstruct. In microstructure imaging, IQT shows potential in estimating, from standard “single-shell” data (one non-zero b-value), maps of microstructural parameters that normally require specialised multi-shell data. Further experiments show strong generalisability, highlighting IQT's benefits even when the training set does not directly represent the application domain. The concept extends naturally to many other imaging modalities and reconstruction problems
A Dedicated Tool for Presurgical Mapping of Brain Tumors and Mixed-Reality Navigation During Neurosurgery
Brain tumor surgery requires a delicate tradeoff between complete removal of neoplastic tissue while minimizing loss of brain function. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) have emerged as valuable tools for non-invasive assessment of human brain function and are now used to determine brain regions that should be spared to prevent functional impairment after surgery. However, image analysis requires different software packages, mainly developed for research purposes and often difficult to use in a clinical setting, preventing large-scale diffusion of presurgical mapping. We developed a specialized software able to implement an automatic analysis of multimodal MRI presurgical mapping in a single application and to transfer the results to the neuronavigator. Moreover, the imaging results are integrated in a commercially available wearable device using an optimized mixed-reality approach, automatically anchoring 3-dimensional holograms obtained from MRI with the physical head of the patient. This will allow the surgeon to virtually explore deeper tissue layers highlighting critical brain structures that need to be preserved, while retaining the natural oculo-manual coordination. The enhanced ergonomics of this procedure will significantly improve accuracy and safety of the surgery, with large expected benefits for health care systems and related industrial investors
Interoperable atlases of the human brain
International audienceThe last two decades have seen an unprecedented development of human brain mapping approaches at various spatial and temporal scales. Together, these have provided a large fundus of information on many different as-pects of the human brain including micro-and macrostructural segregation, regional specialization of function, connectivity, and temporal dynamics. Atlases are central in order to integrate such diverse information in a topo-graphically meaningful way. It is noteworthy, that the brain mapping field has been developed along several major lines such as structure vs. function, postmortem vs. in vivo, individual features of the brain vs. population-based aspects, or slow vs. fast dynamics. In order to understand human brain organization, however, it seems inevitable that these different lines are integrated and combined into a multimodal human brain model. To this aim, we held a workshop to determine the constraints of a multi-modal human brain model that are needed to enable (i) an integration of different spatial and temporal scales and data modalities into a common reference system, and (ii) efficient data exchange and analysis. As detailed in this report, to arrive at fully interoperable atlases of the human brain will still require much work at the frontiers of data acquisition, analysis, and represen-tation. Among them, the latter may provide the most challenging task, in particular when it comes to representing features of vastly different scales of space, time and abstraction. The potential benefits of such endeavor, however, clearly outweigh the problems, as only such kind of multi-modal human brain atlas may provide a starting point from which the complex relationships between structure, function, and connectivity may be explored
Improving and validating methods in lesion behaviour mapping
The investigation of diseased brain is one of the major methods in cognitive
neuroscience. This approach allows numerous insights both into human cognition and
brain architecture. Most prominent is the method of lesion behaviour mapping, where
inferences about functional brain architecture are drawn from focally lesioned brains.
In the last 15 years, the state-of-the-art implementation of lesion behaviour mapping
has been voxel-based lesion behaviour mapping, which is based on the framework of
statistical parametric mapping. Recently, the validity of this method has been
criticised and multivariate methods have been proposed to complement or even
replace it.
In my thesis, I aim to evaluate these different methodological approaches to
lesion behaviour mapping and to provide guidelines on how lesion-brain inference
should be drawn. In my first empirical work, I investigate the validity of voxel-based
lesion behaviour mapping. It shows that previous studies overestimated biases
inherent to the method, and that validity can be improved by the use of correction
factors. The second empirical work deals with a recently developed method of
multivariate lesion behaviour mapping. On the one hand, I clarify how this method
can be used to obtain valid lesion-brain inference. On the other hand, I show that the
method is not able to overcome all limitations of voxel-based lesion behaviour
mapping. In my last work, I apply multivariate lesion behaviour mapping to
investigate the neural correlates of higher motor cognition. This analysis is the first to
identify a brain network to underlie apraxia, a disorder of higher motor cognition,
which underlines the benefits of the new multivariate approach in brain networks
Myths and Legends of the Baldwin Effect
This position paper argues that the Baldwin effect is widely
misunderstood by the evolutionary computation community. The
misunderstandings appear to fall into two general categories.
Firstly, it is commonly believed that the Baldwin effect is
concerned with the synergy that results when there is an evolving
population of learning individuals. This is only half of the story.
The full story is more complicated and more interesting. The Baldwin
effect is concerned with the costs and benefits of lifetime
learning by individuals in an evolving population. Several
researchers have focussed exclusively on the benefits, but there
is much to be gained from attention to the costs. This paper explains
the two sides of the story and enumerates ten of the costs and
benefits of lifetime learning by individuals in an evolving population.
Secondly, there is a cluster of misunderstandings about the relationship
between the Baldwin effect and Lamarckian inheritance of acquired
characteristics. The Baldwin effect is not Lamarckian. A Lamarckian
algorithm is not better for most evolutionary computing problems than
a Baldwinian algorithm. Finally, Lamarckian inheritance is not a
better model of memetic (cultural) evolution than the Baldwin effect
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