A Brain Model Learns to Drive - Neuroscience News

Summary: A new AI model that mimics the neural architecture and connections of the hippocampus is able to alter its synaptic connections as it moves a car-like virtual robot. HBP researchers at the Institute of Biophysics of the National Research Council (IBF-CNR) in Palermo, Italy, have mimicked the neuronal architecture and connections of the brain's hippocampus to develop a robotic platform capable of learning as humans do while the robot navigates around a space. The simulated hippocampus is able to alter its own synaptic connections as it moves a car-like virtual robot. Crucially, this means it needs to navigate to a specific destination only once before it is able to remember the path. This is a marked improvement over current autonomous navigation methods that rely on deep learning, and which have to calculate thousands of possible paths instead.