Brains and Blocks

Studying small brains to understand the building blocks of cognition

Cognition encompasses a range of higher-order mental processes, such as attention, working memory, and model-based decision-making. These processes are thought to involve the dynamic interaction of multiple central brain regions. A mechanistic understanding of such computations requires not only monitoring and manipulating specific neural populations during behavior, but also knowing the connec...

Globalization And Inequality In Different Economic Blocks

Hallucinating Brains with Artificial Brains

Human brain function as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), exhibits a rich diversity. In response, understanding the individual variability of brain function and its association with behavior has become one of the major concerns in modern cognitive neuroscience. Our work is motivated by the view that generative models provide a useful tool for understanding this variabili...

Integrating robotics and neuroscience: brains for robots, bodies for brains

Researchers in robotics and artificial intelligence have often looked at biology as a source of inspiration for solving their problems. From the opposite perspective, neuroscientists have recently turned their attention to the use of robotic systems as a way to quantitatively test and analyze theories that would otherwise remain at a speculative stage. Computational models of neurons and networ...

Brains have emulators with brains: Emulation economized

This commentary addresses the neural implementation of emulation, mostly using findings from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Furthermore, both empirical and theoretical suggestions are discussed that render two aspects of emulation theory redundant: independent modal emulators and extra measurement of amodal emulation. This modified emulation theory can conceptually integrate simu...