From physiological principles to computational models of the cortex
Journal of Physiology-Paris. 2007-01-01; 101(1-3): 32-39
DOI: 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2007.10.009
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1. J Physiol Paris. 2007 Jan-May;101(1-3):32-9. Epub 2007 Oct 26.
From physiological principles to computational models of the cortex.
Fix J(1), Rougier N, Alexandre F.
Author information:
(1)Loria, Campus Scientifique, BP 239, 54506, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France.
Understanding the brain goes through the assimilation of an increasing amount of
biological data going from single cell recording to brain imaging studies and
behavioral analysis. The description of cognition at these three levels provides
us with a grid of analysis that can be exploited for the design of computational
models. Beyond data related to specific tasks to be emulated by models, each of
these levels also lays emphasis on principles of computation that must be obeyed
to really implement biologically inspired computations. Similarly, the advantages
of such a joint approach are twofold: computational models are a powerful tool to
experiment brain theories and assess them on the implementation of realistic
tasks, such as visual search tasks. They are also a way to explore and exploit an
original formalism of asynchronous, distributed and adaptive computations with
such precious properties as self-organization, emergence, robustness and more
generally abilities to cope with an intelligent interaction with the world. In
this article, we first discuss three levels at which a cortical circuit might be
observed to provide a modeler with sufficient information to design a
computational model and illustrate this principle with an application to the
control of visual attention.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2007.10.009
PMID: 18042356 [Indexed for MEDLINE]