Published by AlP Press, New York, N.Y (1988).

We analyze a mathematical model for retinal directionally selective cells based on recent electrophysiological data, and show that its computation of motion direction is robust against noise and speed.

Linsker's model was presented with input patterns each consisting

We have mathematically shown that cortical maps in the primary sensory cortices can be reproduced by using three hypotheses which have physiological basis and meaning. Here, our main focus is on ocular.dominance

A mathematical model based on the bulbar anatomy and electrophysiology is described. Simulations produce a 35-60 Hz modulated activity coherent across the bulb, mimicing the observed field potentials. The decision states (for the odor information) here can be thought of as stable cycles, rather than point stable states typical of simpler neuro-computing models. Analysis and simulations show that a group of coupled nonlinear oscillators are responsible for the oscillatory activities determined by the odor input, andthat the bulb, with appropriate inputs from higher centers, can enhance or suppress the sensitivity to partiCUlar odors. The model provides a framework in which to understand the transform between odor input and the bulbar output to olfactory cortex.

We have tested this assumption in the hippocampus, a cortical structure or the brain that is involved in long-term memory. A brier, high-frequency activation or excitatory synapses in the hippocampus produces an increase in synaptic strength known as long-term potentiation, or LTP (BUss and Lomo, 1973), that can last ror many days. LTP is known to be Hebbian since it requires the simultaneous release or neurotransmitter from presynaptic terminals coupled with postsynaptic depolarization (Kelso et al, 1986; Malinow and Miller, 1986; Gustatrson et al, 1987). However, a mechanism ror the persistent reduction or synaptic strength that could balance LTP has not yet been demonstrated. We studied theassociative interactions between separate inputs onto the same dendritic trees or hippocampal pyramidal cells or field CAl, and round that a low-frequency input which, by itselr, does not persistently change synaptic strength, can either increase (associative LTP) or decrease in strength (associative long-term depression or LTD) depending upon whether it is positively or negatively correlated in time with a second, high-frequency bursting input. LTP or synaptic strength is Hebbian, and LTD is anti-Hebbian since it is elicited by pairing presynaptic firing with postsynaptic hyperpolarizationsufficient to block postsynaptic activity.

We have used analog VLSI technology to model a class of small oscillating biologicalneural circuits known as central pattern generators (CPG). These circuits generate rhythmic patterns of activity which drive locomotor behaviour in the animal. We have designed, fabricated, and tested a model neuron circuit which relies on many of the same mechanisms as a biological central pattern generator neuron, such as delays and internal feedback. We show that this neuron can be used to build several small circuits based on known biological CPG circuits, and that these circuits produce patterns of output which are very similar to the observed biological patterns. To date, researchers in applied neural networks have tended to focus on mammalian systemsas the primary source of potentially useful biological information. However, invertebrate systems may represent a source of ideas in many ways more appropriate, given current levels of engineering sophistication in building neural-like systems, and given the state of biological understanding of mammalian circuits.

Visual guidance of a multi-link arm through a cluttered workspace is known to be an extremely difficult computational problem. Classical approaches in the field of robotics have typically broken the problem into pieces of manageable size, including modules for direct and inverse kinematics and dynamics [7], along with a variety of highly complex algorithms for motion planning in the configuration space of a multi-link arm (e.g.

This paper describes the construction of a system that recognizes hand-printed digits, using a combination of classical techniques and neural-net methods. The system has been trained and tested on real-world data, derived from zip codes seen on actual U.S. Mail. The system rejects a small percentage of the examples as unclassifiable, and achieves a very low error rate on the remaining examples. The system compares favorably with other state-of-the art recognizers. While some of the methods are specific to this task, it is hoped that many of the techniques will be applicable to a wide range of recognition tasks.

ALVINN (Autonomous Land Vehicle In a Neural Network) is a 3-layer back-propagation network designed for the task of road following. Currently ALVINNtakes images from a camera and a laser range finder as input and produces as output the direction the vehicle should travel in order to follow the road. Training has been conducted using simulated road images. Successful tests on the Carnegie Mellon autonomous navigation test vehicle indicate that the network can effectively follow real roads under certain field conditions. The representation developed to perfOIm the task differs dramatically whenthe networlc is trained under various conditions, suggesting the possibility of a novel adaptive autonomous navigation system capable of tailoring its processing to the conditions at hand.