Convergent Science Network Podcast: Recent Episodes
Convergent Science Network: by Prof. Paul Verschure
We can learn a lot from brains and bodies when making machines and robots. But reversely, building complex machine systems can also give ideas about how brains and bodies have implemented their functioning over the evolution of ages. This podcast discusses various themes and aspects in-between robotics, neuroscience, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, biology, and technology.
The Virtual Brain project aims to support the simulation of whole brain models. Here we discuss the state of the art and the challenges TVB is facing.
Touch, the brain and the advanced experimental paradigms and models Vincent pursues to understand both.
The self-organization of the neocortex following epigenetic principles. Stewart aims to understand the nature of this interaction between brain and behaviour by allowing models of map self-organisation to guide the movement of simulated animal bodies.
New developments at the intersection of neuroscience and information technology have the potential to be socially and ethically disruptive. We discuss with Christine ideas of social responsibility in science.
The predictive coding framework departs from the divide of perception, cognition, and action, and provides a unifying framework in which the organism minimizes surprise. In the podcast we discuss the implications of this framework.
Maarja Kruusma (Tallin University of Technology) studies the building of fish, focusing especially on swimming. With Paul Verschure she discusses the importance of morphological details and body control, as well as biomimetical approaches in general.
Bechir and Uhrig discuss their work on the mechanisms of consciousness as revealed through anaesthesia.
We discuss the question of how biological and artificial systems can explore and find information relative to their goals. In response, Daniel explains his notion of "Empowerment".
Neil Burgess discusses his latest insights in the memory systems of the brain, the hippocampus, including its experimental and theoretical exploration.
Ton Coolen describes the complex network of the immune system and how theoretical models can help us to understand their function in health and disease.
Semir Zeki speaks on the visual system of the human brain and how it can give rise to aesthetic experiences.
Giacomo Rizzolatti takes us on a tour through his long study of the mirror neuron system of the brain and how it revolutionized the study of mind
Jose Halloy speaks on his experiments where he used robots to investigate the collective behavior of animals.
Matthew E. Diamond (SISSA, Trieste) discusses the neural correlates of decision making, and his studies of that in both humans and rats.
Francesca Cacucci takes us on a tour of the organization of the memory systems of the brain from cells to circuits and behavior.
Tony Prescott interviews Paul Verschure on his theory of the brain and how it has given rise to new hypotheses on the function and mechanisms of conscicousness
Narender Ramnani (University of London) studies the cerebellum, and discusses here his view of the functional interactions between that brain area and the neocortical areas of the brain.
Ranulfo Romo (University of Mexico) discusses the conscious and unconscious manifestations of decision making in the brain, focusing especially if and how neurons can process more than single sensory modalities.
Stephen Nocter (UC Davis, California) on the evolution and regulation of neural precursor cells in the developing vertebrate brain. He discusses his work studying the pathways of developing neurons, moving between brain zones.
Bryan Kolb (University of Lethbridge, Alberta) discusses his study of the influence of changes in stimulation, behaviour and brain circuits on gene expression in the developing brain.
Kate J. Jefferey (University College, London) discusses her work on spatial navigation, focusing on the interaction between place cells, grid cells, and the influence of contextual clues.
John Lisman (Brandeis University, Massachusetts) discusses his work on the brain’s navigation coding, arguing how sets of faster oscillations nested in slower cycles may constitute a general communication principle in the brain.
Marc Blumberg’s (University of Iowa) work focuses on sleep, more specific on the influence of the twitching of muscles on the sensorimotor system.
Edvard Moser (Kavli Institute and Centre for Neural Computation, Norway; Nobel prize 2014) discusses the work of his group, his wife and himself on the brain’s computation of spatial memory.
Gregg Recanzone (UC Davis, California) talks about his older work on plasticity in the adult brain. With Paul Verschure and Toby Prescott he discuss how neurons keep adapting to a type of input they are receiving.
Benny Hochner (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) discusses his work on octopi and the way motor control is uniquely organised in their flexible bodies.
Barbara Finlay (Cornell University, New York) focuses on causal relations between brain structure and an animal’s evolutionarily differentiated behaviour. She discusses the ways brains do change, but in a quite constraint fashion.
Randall D Beer (Indiana University, Bloomington) discusses the use of dynamical systems theory as a mathematical 'lens' or language to study the brain and its processes. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Zoltán Monár (Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford) discusses his work on the development of the brain. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Yaki Setty (Computational Systems Biology, Max Planck Institute, Saarbrücken) discusses his work on the modeling of neurogenesis and related developmental processes. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Stefano Ferraina (Physiology, Sapienza University, Rome) discusses his work on primate decision making and inference. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Murray Shanahan (Cognitive Robotics, Imperial College London) discusses his work on the dynamics of cortical networks and their non-linear properties. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Jon Kaas (Vanderbilt University, Nashville) discusses his view on the evolution of brains from early mammals to humans. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Henry Kennedy (Stem-Cell and Brain Research Institute, Lyon) discusses his work on the anatomical structure of the primate cortex. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Etienne Koechlin (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) discusses with Paul Verschure the functional organization of the human prefrontal-cortex function underpinning reasoning, learning and exploration in the service of decision-making and adaptive behavior.
David Redish (Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, ) discusses his work on the neuronal substrate of spatial navigation, memory and regret. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Gary Marcus (NYU Center for Language and Music, New York) discusses his criticism of the current views of cortical organization and his proposal on an alternative perspective. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Dorothy Fragaszy (Primate Behavior Laboratory, University of Georgia) discusses her work on tool use in non-human primates. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Danielle Stolzenberg (University of California, Davis) discusses her work on innate behaviors and their genetic and neuronal regulation in the hypothalamus. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.
Germund Hesslow (Lund University) discusses with Paul Verschure the role of the cerebellum in the animal brain. Behavioral learning, prediction and the neural substrate underlying these functions are discussed with a focus on Classical Conditioning.
Eberhard Fetz (University of Washington, Seattle) discusses with Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott the neural substrate of action coding in the light of the experimental results obtained from an autonomous implantable recurrent brain-computer interface.
Tim Pierce (University of Leicester), discusses with Paul Verschure the topic of animal olfaction and the its neural substrate in order to develop computational approaches able to validate empirical findings and to lead to a tangible technological outcome
Cyriel Pennartz (University of Amsterdam), interviewed by Paul Verschure, focuses on the role of pre-frontal cortex in associative learning and reward prediction coding and its possible interactions with other brain areas like hippocampus and striatum.
Paul Verschure (Pompeu Fabra University), interviewed by Tony Prescott and Tim Pierce, presents his theory of consciousness and its evolution, suggesting how it could be computationally explained within a biologically grounded cognitive architecture.
Alex Kacelnik (Oxford University) together with Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott elaborates on animal cognition addressing tool use habits of birds from an evolutionary perspective and discussing topics like learning and problem solving.
Marc Toussaint (University of Stuttgart), interviewed by Paul Verschure, presents his computational approach to planning and optimal control introducing an hypothesis on how neural systems might solve stochastic optimal control and RL problems.
Sten Grillner (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm), interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott, discusses the adaptable networks that generate different motor patterns in animals, both from a neuro-scientific and a computational point of view.
Aldo Genovesio (Università Sapienza di Roma), discusses with Paul Verschure, the role of primates pre-frontal cortex in decision making and action planning, encoding error, past-action outcome and goal directed behavior.
Friedemann Pulvermuller (Free University of Berlin) is With Paul Verschure he discusses language, semantics and the building of meaning through action, and a grounding of this in the brain science.
Peter Gärdenfors (Lund University) discusses with Paul Verschure how the mind can represent knowledge. He introduces a cognitive theory of conceptual spaces, built from dimensions derived from perception, action, and social grounding in society.
Peter Mombaerts (Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt) discusses with Paul Verschure the genetics underlying the mammalian olfactory system as a model system for studying the formation of neural circuits during development.
Moshe Bar (Harvard Medical School, Charlestown) argues for a cognitive model that blends expectation (top-down) and sensation (bottom-up) processing. With Paul Verschure he discusses also imagination, meditation, and depression treatment in this context.
Mandyam Srinivasan's research (University of Queensland, Brisbane) centers on vision and cognition of flying insects, especially bees. He discusses it with Paul Verschure and special guest Partha Mitra (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York).
Giovanni Pezzulo (Institute of Cognitive Sciences & Technologies, Rome) discusses with Paul Verschure the concept of the predictive brain that actively anticipates body movement.
Nick Strausfeld's interest (University of Arizona, Tucson) lies in evolution and comparative neurobiology. With Paul & Tony he discusses how common denominators of insect brains lead us to find core system architectures.
Guenther Knoblich's work (Central European University, Budapest) focuses on joint action like performed in team sports, and acrobatics. With Paul Verschure he discusses cognitive aspects of coordination, timing, and signalling while moving together.
Dmitri B. Chklovskii (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) discusses the idea of the brain as an adaptive filter, and what theoretical and experimental implications this approach entails.
Donald W. Pfaff heads the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at The Rokefeller University. With Paul Verschure he discusses the central role of the arousal system in mind, brain, and behavior.
Dana Ballard (University of Texas, Austin) argues that vision is agenda-driven, rather than saliency-driven alone. With Paul Verschure he discusses how the idea of gathering and integrating information quanta into a mental scene applies to a wider model.
Jon Kaas (Vanderbilt University) is an expert on the evolution of the brain. Together with Paul & Tony he discusses similarities in neural architectures between different species. [A technical problem affected the guest's recording up to minute 6
Maria Chiara Carozza (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy) talks with Tony Prescott about the development of robotic prosthetic hands, exoskeletons, and skin, and the ways this could help people increase body movement control and rehabilitate.
Kevin O'Regan (Université Paris Descartes, France) theorizes building robots that can feel. Passing topics like sensory presence and sensorimotor laws, he and Paul Verschure reach the boundaries of what it means to 'feel'.
Yoseph Bar-Cohen (Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA) is an expert in the field of biomimetics. With Paul Verschure he discusses the influence of mountain goats on climbing robots, as well as the ways robotic technology is revolutionizing our society.
Main topics in Hillel Chiel's research (Case Western Reserve University, USA) are control systems, and biomechanics. With Paul Verschure he discusses how studying completely soft body control, like of tongues, can lead to finding main principles.
Joseph Ayers (Northeastern University) has moved from systems physiology to building robot lobsters, increasingly focusing on the interplay between the physiological, sensorimotor, and neural interplay of these animals' characteristics.
Huoseng Hu (University of Essex, UK) moved from industrial to service & field robotics. He discusses the building of robot fish with Tony Prescott, but also the development of a semi-robotic wheelchair controlled with thoughts.
Andy Philipides (University of Sussex, UK) studies insect navigation, as e.g. ants do. With Tony Prescott he discusses the importance of studying real ants in natural environments next to lab modeling, and themes like path integration and visual memory.
Mitra Hartmann (Northwestern University, USA) researches perception, particularly 'active sensing'. With Tony Prescott, a colleague in the field, she discusses what can be learnt from exploratory behavior like whisking, including behavior and biology.
Federico Carpi (University of Pisa, Italy) is an expert on robot body materials. With Tony Prescott he discusses the current development towards soft materials that can deform under electrical stimulation, and can act and sense at the same time.
Frank Grasso (Cognitive Robotics Lab, City University of New York) has extensively studied lobsters and cephalopods, and modeled with robots. With Tony Prescott he discusses sensing capabilities, control and learning capabilities of these animals.
Kathy Rockland talks with Paul Verschure about cortical organization. Discrepancies between anatomy and funcional structure are discussed, as well as distributive processing.
Bill Hansson's research focuses on the the theme of olfaction, especially in insects. With Paul Verschure he discusses neural structures, but also the ways flowers have evolved to successfully deceive such olfactory systems.
John Doyle discusses with Paul Verschure control architectures in single cellular organisms. These small systems seem to very successfully combine small-time scale robustness with long term adaptibility.
Dom Massaro (University of California at santa Cruz) wants to test a bold claim: children can learn to read before they learn to talk. With Paul Verschure he discusses speech and reading perception, as well as changing language education in society.
An expert in aerodynamics and animal locomotion, David Lentink (Wageningen University, The Netherlands) discusses with Tony Prescott the evolution of flight, its dynamics, and the influence of animal size.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.
After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.