Synopsis
Authors: Francesco Mannella, Gianluca Baldassarre
Topic and its relevance. This research thread, started recently, concerns the study of cortex viewed as a dynamical system whose dynamics is regulated by basal ganglia. The importance of this reseach resides in the fact that the basal-ganglia and cortex form segregated loops that are a fundamental building block underlying multiple cognitive processes, from associative sensory processing to motor behaviour, thinking, plannig, and reasoning.
Questions and goals. How does cortex encode and process information, e.g. to control motor behaviour? How do basal-ganglia modulate such processing? What are the plasticity process that characterise this system? Methods. We model cortex with echo-state networks and basal ganglia with re-entrant localistic neural networks. The models use associative and reinforcement biologically plausible learning rules.
Results. The models show how cortex migth process information in a highly dynamical fashion, and how basal-ganglia might select the contents within cortex by modulating its dynamics.
Conclusions. The basal-ganglia and cortex form a highly integrated system with an inherently dynamical nature. A basic functioning and learning template can sub-serve multiple cognitive processes.