Design, Analysis and Validation of Biologically Plausible Computational Models.

该项目将尝试第一次真正的“逆向工程”的行为，从大脑皮层的细胞研究外，生长在一个特殊的芯片上，允许密集的读入和读出这些细胞的网络。大脑皮层是人类大脑（以及许多其他哺乳动物大脑）最大的部分。逆向工程如果成功，将使我们首次了解这些细胞如何在电路层面上作为一个功能性的工程系统工作。由于其独特性和新奇，这项工作将存在严重的风险。其中一位合作者将把这些细胞网络的行为与他的新神经元模型--液态模型（LSM）进行比较。另一个是将细胞和LSM与通用学习挑战进行比较，这些挑战已经使用人工神经网络解决，用于现实世界的工程任务，如预测，控制和分类等。跨学科和国际合作在使这一新的研究方向成为可能方面发挥着至关重要的作用。

This project will attempt the first true "reverse engineering" of the behavior of cells from the cerebral cortex studied outside the brain, grown on a special chip which allows dense read-ins and read-outs from a network of these cells. The cerebral cortex is the largest part of the human brain (and of many other mammalian brains). Reverse engineering, if successful, would give us the first understanding of how these cells work as a functional, engineering system at the circuit level. Because of its uniqueness and novelty, there will be serious risks in this work. One of the collaborators will be comparing the behavior of these networks of cells against his new model of neurons, the liquid state model (LSM). Another will be comparing the cells and the LSM against general-purpose learning challenges which have been addressed using artificial neural networks, for real-world engineering tasks such as prediction and control and classification and so on. The crossdisciplinary and international collaborations play a crucial role in making this new direction for research possible.