6533b851fe1ef96bd12a99f8

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Self-organization of Computation in Neural Systems

subject

description

When learning a complex task our nervous system self-organizes large groups of neurons into coherent dynamic activity patterns. During this, a cell assembly network with multiple, simultaneously active, and computationally powerful assemblies is formed; a process which is so far not understood. Here we show that the combination of synaptic plasticity with the slower process of synaptic scaling achieves formation of such assembly networks. This type of self-organization allows executing a difficult, six degrees of freedom, manipulation task with a robot where assemblies need to learn computing complex non-linear transforms and - for execution - must cooperate with each other without interference. This mechanism, thus, permits for the first time the guided self-organization of computationally powerful sub-structures in dynamic networks for behavior control.