Fluctuation-Induced Network Control and Learning


Book Description

From theory to application, this book presents research on biologically and brain-inspired networking and machine learning based on Yuragi, which is the Japanese term describing the noise or fluctuations that are inherently used to control the dynamics of a system. The Yuragi mechanism can be found in various biological contexts, such as in gene expression dynamics, molecular motors in muscles, or the visual recognition process in the brain. Unlike conventional network protocols that are usually designed to operate under controlled conditions with a predefined set of rules, the probabilistic behavior of Yuragi-based control permits the system to adapt to unknown situations in a distributed and self-organized manner leading to a higher scalability and robustness. The book consists of two parts. Part 1 provides in four chapters an introduction to the biological background of the Yuragi concept as well as how these are applied to networking problems. Part 2 provides additional contributions that extend the original Yuragi concept to a Bayesian attractor model from human perceptual decision making. In the six chapters of the second part, applications to various fields in information network control and artificial intelligence are presented, ranging from virtual network reconfigurations, a software-defined Internet of Things, and low-power wide-area networks. This book will benefit those working in the fields of information networks, distributed systems, and machine learning who seek new design mechanisms for controlling large-scale dynamically changing systems.




The Spontaneous Brain


Book Description

An argument for a Copernican revolution in our consideration of mental features—a shift in which the world-brain problem supersedes the mind-body problem. Philosophers have long debated the mind-body problem—whether to attribute such mental features as consciousness to mind or to body. Meanwhile, neuroscientists search for empirical answers, seeking neural correlates for consciousness, self, and free will. In this book, Georg Northoff does not propose new solutions to the mind-body problem; instead, he questions the problem itself, arguing that it is an empirically, ontologically, and conceptually implausible way to address the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms of the relationship between world and brain; philosophers should consider the world-brain problem rather than the mind-body problem. This calls for a Copernican shift in vantage point—from within the mind or brain to beyond the brain—in our consideration of mental features. Northoff, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, explains that empirical evidence suggests that the brain's spontaneous activity and its spatiotemporal structure are central to aligning and integrating the brain within the world. This spatiotemporal structure allows the brain to extend beyond itself into body and world, creating the “world-brain relation” that is central to mental features. Northoff makes his argument in empirical, ontological, and epistemic-methodological terms. He discusses current models of the brain and applies these models to recent data on neuronal features underlying consciousness and proposes the world-brain relation as the ontological predisposition for consciousness.




Artificial Neural Networks and Machine Learning – ICANN 2017


Book Description

The two volume set, LNCS 10613 and 10614, constitutes the proceedings of then 26th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2017, held in Alghero, Italy, in September 2017. The 128 full papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 270 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: From Perception to Action; From Neurons to Networks; Brain Imaging; Recurrent Neural Networks; Neuromorphic Hardware; Brain Topology and Dynamics; Neural Networks Meet Natural and Environmental Sciences; Convolutional Neural Networks; Games and Strategy; Representation and Classification; Clustering; Learning from Data Streams and Time Series; Image Processing and Medical Applications; Advances in Machine Learning. There are 63 short paper abstracts that are included in the back matter of the volume.







The neurobiology of emotion-cognition interactions


Book Description

There is increasing interest in understanding the interplay of emotional and cognitive processes. The objective of the Research Topic was to provide an interdisciplinary survey of cutting-edge neuroscientific research on the interaction and integration of emotion and cognition in the brain. The following original empirical reports, commentaries and theoretical reviews provide a comprehensive survey on recent advances in understanding how emotional and cognitive processes interact, how they are integrated in the brain, and what their implications for understanding the mind and its disorders are. These works encompasses a broad spectrum of populations and showcases a wide variety of paradigms, measures, analytic strategies, and conceptual approaches. The aim of the Topic was to begin to address several key questions about the interplay of cognitive and emotional processes in the brain, including: what is the impact of emotional states, anxiety and stress on various cognitive functions? How are emotion and cognition integrated in the brain? Do individual differences in affective dimensions of temperament and personality alter cognitive performance, and how is this realized in the brain? Are there individual differences that increase vulnerability to the impact of affect on cognition—who is vulnerable, and who resilient? How plastic is the interplay of cognition and emotion? Taken together, these works demonstrate that emotion and cognition are deeply interwoven in the fabric of the brain, suggesting that widely held beliefs about the key constituents of ‘the emotional brain’ and ‘the cognitive brain’ are fundamentally flawed. Developing a deeper understanding of the emotional-cognitive brain is important, not just for understanding the mind but also for elucidating the root causes of its many debilitating disorders.







Olfactory memory networks: from emotional learning to social behaviors


Book Description

Odors are powerful stimuli that can evoke emotional states, and support learning and memory. Decades of research have indicated that the neural basis for this strong “odor-emotional memory” connection is due to the uniqueness of the anatomy of the olfactory pathways. Indeed, unlike the other sensory systems, the sense of smell does not pass through the thalamus to be routed to the cortex. Rather, odor information is relayed directly to the limbic system, a brain region typically associated with memory and emotional processes. This provides olfaction with a unique and potent power to influence mood, acquisition of new information, and use of information in many different contexts including social interactions. Indeed, olfaction is crucially involved in behaviors essential for survival of the individual and species, including identification of predators, recognition of individuals for procreation or social hierarchy, location of food, as well as attachment between mating pairs and infant-caretaker dyads. Importantly, odors are sampled through sniffing behavior. This active sensing plays an important role in exploratory behaviors observed in the different contexts mentioned above. Odors are also critical for learning and memory about events and places and constitute efficient retrieval cues for the recall of emotional episodic memories. This broad role for odors appears highly preserved across species. In addition, the consistent early developmental emergence of olfactory function across diverse species also provides a unique window of opportunity for analysis of myriad behavioral systems from rodents to nonhuman primates and humans. This, when combined with the relatively conserved organization of the olfactory system in mammals, provides a powerful framework to explore how complex behaviors can be modulated by odors to produce adaptive responses, and to investigate the underlying neural networks. The present research topic brings together cutting edge research on diverse species and developmental stages, highlighting convergence and divergence between humans and animals to facilitate translational research.










Machine Learning in Heliophysics


Book Description