DeepMind Explores Deep RL for Brain and Behaviour Research – IAM Network

As a basis for modelling brain function, deep learning has in recent years been used to model systems in vision, audition, motor control, navigation, and cognitive control. In a new paper, DeepMind researchers call attention to another "fundamentally novel" development in AI research -- deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) -- which they believe also has vital implications for neuroscience and deserves more attention from neuroscientists. The first neuroscience applications of supervised deep learning can be traced back to the 1980s. The increasing availability of more powerful computers over the past decade has renewed research efforts in applying AI approaches -- especially supervised deep learning -- to neuroscience.Deep RL unites deep learning and reinforcement learning, a computational framework that has already had a substantial impact on neuroscience research. The DeepMind team proposes deep RL as a comprehensive framework for studying the interplay between learning, representation, and decision-making that can bring new set of research tools and a wide range of novel hypotheses to the brain sciences.Although deep neural networks have proven an impressive model for neural representation, the team notes that related research has mostly utilized supervised training and has therefore provided little direct leverage on the big-picture problem of understanding motivated, goal-directed …