Group items tagged

A collection of research groups working on neuroinformatics/computational neuroscience

new interesting neuroscience article ... how can we learn from this for AI?

> how can we learn from this for AI? After reading the abstract only... it appears a bit too low-level to be relevant...

How a 1960s discovery in neuroscience spawned a military project

Edu!!!

Wow, a science paper! Fantastic! Congratulations!

Respect. Would that be the first "scienture" paper from ACT member?

Long time no post for me ! But this kind of popular science-engineering-basic neuroscience-bicycle-amsterdam related video seemed it could be a bit interesting for the group !

this is fantastic!!!

As I now work in the Centre for Robotics *and Neuroscience*, here's a story for you. Some highlights: "It sent the iron straight up into his skull and out of the top of his head, landing some 30 metres away. (...) Phineas was unconscious before getting up and riding an oxcart into town with, 'a big bleedin' hole in his head'. (...) although Phineas survived, he was a changed man. Now he was reportedly unreliable, partial to swearing and often making inappropriate remarks." I guess If I were him I'd be a little partial to swearing too.

Apparently you didn't read it... This is a story about how science is born :)

now I did ... :-) just had read your comment ....

A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).

As far as I know it's sort of like "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens"... i.e. a waste of taxpayer's money... Able to heal Alzheimer... Yeah... Actually I was on the conference the author is mentioning (FET 2011) and I have seen the presentations of all 6 flagship proposals. Following that I had a discussion with one of my colleagues about the existence of limits of the amount of bullshit politicians are willing to buy from scientists. Will there be a point at which politicians, despite their total ignorance, will realise that scientists simply don't deliver anything they promise? How long will we (scientists) be stuck in the viscous circle of have-to-promise-more-than-predecessors in order to get money? Will we face a situation when we'll be forced to revert to promises which are realistic? To be honest none of the 6 presentations convinced me of their scientific merit (apart from the one on graphene where I have absolutely no expertise to tell). Apparently a huge amount of money is about to be wasted.

It's not just "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens", it's worse! Also the simulation of the cosmological evolution is/was a little bit of this type, still the results are very interesting and useful. Why? Neither the whole cosmos nor the human brain at the level of single neurons can be modelled on a computer, that would last aeons on a "yet-to-be-invented-extra-super-computer". Thus one has to make assumptions and simplifications. In cosmology we have working theories of gravitation, thermodynamics, electrodynamics etc. at hand; starting from these theories we can make reasonable assumptions and (more or less) justified simplifications. The result is valuable since it provides insight into a complex system under given, explicit and understood assumptions. Nothing similar seems to exist in neuroscience. There is no theory of the human brain and apparently nobody has the slightest idea which simplifications can be made without harm. Of course, Mr. Markram remains completely unaffected of ''details'' like this. Finally, Marek, money is not wasted, we ''build networks of excellence'' and ''select the brightest of the brightest'' to make them study and work at our ''elite institutions'' :-). I lively remember the stage of one of these "bestofthebest" from Ivy League at the ACT...

For those sceptics about the use of neuroscience: A 20min talk (by a computer scientist!) about brain science and its use to build intelligent technology

so what does he sell? 22' without saying anything? Just "intelligence is prediction" - great but what are you gonna do mate?

I do not think his intention is to sell anything... Just to make people (from a non neuroscience background) aware that brain science will have an impact on technology. Also: I am a firm believer in that "prediction"defines intelligence, as he states, and that making machines that behave in such a way is the way to go :) (the talk is from 2003 btw :p)

Interesting psychological experiment

DeepMind actually got a comp-sci paper into nature...

Another win for the tea aquarium!

Oh yes!

...how about you?

It's proven, sleepiness is genetic.

Why it is written 0 views if I read it ?!

"inherently difficult problem" is exaggerated but interesting experiment nevertheless; any volunteers to put their brain under voltage ?

Solution to the problem looks easy when you see it, but note it requires thinking out of the box (literally), and I guess this is the main reason of its difficulty. What ACT could do is to check if the procedure increases one's average score in the astronaut test.

Some new field of game for the ACT?

Very interesting paper!

wow impressive. Could be super useful for astronauts !

... a theory of everytg. Dario, enjoy! :)

the guy is also a guru of brain imaging....... " and is currently the fourth most cited scientist in neuroscience and behavior in the world " - WoW

i think the guy was smoking something whilst writing this!!