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Query: faculty: "FNWI" and publication year: "2010"

AuthorTom Marshall
Title“Closed loops, cortex, and computing; to what extent can research in the cognitive neurosciences benefit from coupling mind to machine?”
SupervisorN.N.
Year2010
FacultyFaculty of Science
ProgrammeFNWI MSc Brain and Cognitive Sciences
AbstractLike the rest of the population, cognitive neuroscientists live and work in an age of ubiquitous computing, and high-speed computers are an indispensible part of their research toolkit. In the vast
majority of experimental paradigms, the relationship between computer and neural object-of-study is fundamentally linear, with the neural object-of-study reacting to computer-generated sequential
experimental events, generating data that is analysed offline by a computer. In this thesis, I present the case for an alternative class of experimental design where these two form a closed-loop
architecture, with the output of the system shaping its input via feedback loops. Drawing on examples from cellular electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging I contend that such a closedloop
architecture offers fundamental benefits for disparate areas of neuroscience research in terms of the control offered to experimenters and the scope for experimentation, and discuss ways in which this architecture can offer substantial benefits for future studies.
Document type scriptie master
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