What kind of network is the brain?
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Publication Date
2022-04Journal Title
Trends Cogn Sci
ISSN
1364-6613
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
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Mollon, J., Takahashi, C., & Danilova, M. V. (2022). What kind of network is the brain?. Trends Cogn Sci https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.01.007
Abstract
The different areas of the cerebral cortex are linked by a network of white matter, comprising the myelinated axons of pyramidal cells. Is this network a neural net, in the sense that representations of the world are embodied in the structure of the net, its pattern of nodes, and connections? Or is it a communications network, where the same physical substrate carries different information from moment to moment? This question is part of the larger question of whether the brain is better modeled by connectionism or by symbolic artificial intelligence (AI), but we review it in the specific context of the psychophysics of stimulus comparison and the format and protocol of information transmission over the long-range tracts of the brain.
Sponsorship
Preparation of the paper was supported by BBSRC Grant BB/S000623/1 to Cambridge University and by Russian Ministry of Science and Higher
Education grant to Pavlov Center “Integrative Physiology for Medicine, High-tech Healthcare and Stress Tolerance Technologies” (Agreement No. 075-1502020-921).
Funder references
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/S000623/1)
Embargo Lift Date
2023-02-28
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.01.007
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/334391
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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