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Cognition
The complex patterns of activity generated by the brain support cognition and behavior: the way we perceive the outside world, remember what we perceive, learn from it, imagine and think about it, make plans, and act. One of the project’s most important goals is thus to understand the basic mechanisms that link the thoughts and feelings we know in our daily lives to the “lower level” processes studied by neuroscientists – the operation of molecules, synapses, neurons and circuits. The project’s work in “neurorobotics” will create experimental systems in which a brain simulation controls motors on a robot (the robot’s “muscles”) and sensors on the robot (robot eyes, robot ears etc.) providing input to the brain model. Researchers will use these systems in the same way they might work with experimental animals – carefully measuring their ability to perform well-defined experimental tasks. The key difference is that the new system will not only allow them to make any number of measurements they may require but also to manipulate any aspect of the brain. In other words, brain simulation combined with robotics will provide a completely new and immensely powerful experimental tool.