Overall Research Directions
Four lines of research
have been established in the Institute.
-
Experimental anatomy and
physiology of visual cerebral cortex. These projects are exploring the
structure and function of neuronal microcircuits in cortex. The methods
used include electron and light microscopy, immunocytochemistry, and electrophysiological
recordings from neurons in vitro and in vivo.
-
Theoretical analysis and
simulation of cortical circuits. These projects explore the computational
properties of the microcircuits studied above, and abstract networks of
simplified neurons, suitable for implementation in analog VLSI (see below).
-
Design and fabrication of
neuromorphic systems. These projects are exploiting analog Very Large Scale
Integration methods to construct electronic circuits that perform analogous
signal processing and computational functions to biological neuronal networks.
At present the emphasis in these projects is to develop single and multiple
chip systems that perform early vision processing, to develop dense analog
memory for parameter and synaptic weight storage, and to develop an infrastructure
for interchip communication.
-
Development of neuromorphic
robots. These projects are exploring novel methods for the construction
and control of small robots that could be used as mobile platforms for
developing and testing simple neuromorphic systems.