SHF: Small: Collaborative Research: Computing with cells-the neuron case

SHF：小型：协作研究：细胞计算——神经元案例

• 批准号: 1116707
• 负责人: Mark DeCoster
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: Louisiana Tech University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-07-01 至 2015-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1116707&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SHF; Small; Collaborative; Research; Computing

The work will focus on models of computing with brain cells, more specifically the neurons and their major support cells in the brain, the glia. The major novelty of the project is the consideration of the glia cells in these models of computation. The interplay between glia and neurons has not been considered in the domain literature until now. Thus the project will not only look at how to perform computation taking inspiration from the organization of the neurons and glia into networks, but also explore topics such as investigating the power related to sequentiality/parallelism of such devices, synchronization, data processing and manipulation such as considering different types of output encoding for the computation. Several other topics considered already for neuronal systems such as universality/non-universality of networks with various restrictions, normal forms and consideration of the refractory period of neurons will also be investigated for the new devices.The project will incorporate an experimental part in the second year of the timeline when with the help of the senior researcher on the project, Dr. Mark DeCoster (professor of Biomedical Engineering) the results of the first phase of the work will be validated in the lab. The work holds promise to significantly impact several research areas as well as the emerging area of computing with cells. In Computer Science, the research may yield new paradigms and new computing techniques (as has happened in the discovery of genetic algorithms and neural networks). In Biology, the project is likely to provide insight into the organization of brain cells networks, including the support cells for neurons, the glia. One of the major objectives of this project is to gain more knowledge and insight into the extraordinary biological systems ? the cells and also to understand in a systemic way how the sub-cellular processes work and how the cell-cell communications can be useful for performing distributed computations. Algorithms, source codes and results of the project will be freely disseminated to the public through the project's website.

这项工作将集中在脑细胞的计算模型上，更具体地说，是神经元及其在大脑中的主要支持细胞，神经胶质。该项目的主要新奇在于在这些计算模型中考虑了神经胶质细胞。胶质细胞和神经元之间的相互作用尚未在该领域的文献中考虑到，直到现在。因此，该项目不仅将研究如何从神经元和神经胶质到网络的组织中获得灵感来执行计算，还将探索诸如调查与此类设备的顺序性/并行性相关的功率，同步，数据处理和操纵等主题，例如考虑不同类型的计算输出编码。对于神经元系统已经考虑的其他几个主题，例如具有各种限制的网络的普适性/非普适性，正常形式和神经元不应期的考虑也将在新设备中进行研究。该项目将在时间轴的第二年纳入实验部分，在该项目高级研究员的帮助下，Mark DeCoster博士（生物医学工程教授）将在实验室中验证第一阶段工作的结果。这项工作有望对几个研究领域以及新兴的细胞计算领域产生重大影响。在计算机科学中，研究可能会产生新的范例和新的计算技术（如遗传算法和神经网络的发现）。在生物学方面，该项目可能会深入了解脑细胞网络的组织，包括神经元的支持细胞，神经胶质细胞。这个项目的主要目标之一是获得更多的知识和洞察力的非凡的生物系统？细胞，并以系统的方式理解亚细胞过程如何工作，以及细胞-细胞通信如何有助于执行分布式计算。该项目的算法、源代码和结果将通过该项目的网站免费向公众传播。