Related papers: Closed-loop robots driven by short-term synaptic p…
We investigate the sensorimotor loop of simple robots simulated within the LPZRobots environment from the point of view of dynamical systems theory. For a robot with a cylindrical shaped body and an actuator controlled by a single…
Short-term synaptic plasticity (STSP) affects the efficiency of synaptic transmission for persistent presynaptic activities. We consider attractor neural networks, for which the attractors are given, in the absence of STSP, by cell…
Which kind of complex behavior may arise from self-organizing principles? We investigate this question for the case of snake-like robots composed of passively coupled segments, with every segment containing two wheels actuated separately by…
Self-organized robots may develop attracting states within the sensorimotor loop, that is within the phase space of neural activity, body, and environmental variables. Fixpoints, limit cycles, and chaotic attractors correspond in this…
We show that the local Spike Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) rule has the effect of regulating the trans-synaptic weights of loops of any length within a simulated network of neurons. We show that depending on STDP's polarity, functional…
The synaptic connectivity of cortical networks features an overrepresentation of certain wiring motifs compared to simple random-network models. This structure is shaped, in part, by synaptic plasticity that promotes or suppresses…
Short-term plasticity (STP) is fundamental to temporal information processing in biological neural systems but remains difficult to realize efficiently in neuromorphic hardware. Memristive electrochemical random-access memory (ECRAM)…
In neuroscience, synaptic plasticity refers to the set of mechanisms driving the dynamics of neuronal connections, called synapses and represented by a scalar value, the synaptic weight. A Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) rule is a…
We present self-organizing control principles for simulated robots actuated by synthetic muscles. Muscles correspond to linear motors exerting force only when contracting, but not when expanding, with joints being actuated by pairs of…
Short-term plasticity (STP) is a mechanism that stores decaying memories in synapses of the cerebral cortex. In computing practice, STP has been used, but mostly in the niche of spiking neurons, even though theory predicts that it is the…
Locomotion may be induced on three levels. On a classical level, actuators and limbs follow the sequence of open-loop top-down control signals they receive. Limbs may move alternatively on their own, which implies that interlimb…
This study explores the design and control of the behaviour of agents and robots using simple circuits of spiking neurons and Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) as a mechanism of associative and unsupervised learning. Based on a…
We consider a fully-connected network of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with spike-timing-dependent plasticity. The plasticity is controlled by a parameter representing the expected weight of a synapse between neurons that are firing…
The high motility of synaptic weights raises the question of how the brain can retain its functionality in the face of constant synaptic remodeling. Here we used the whisker system of rats and mice to study the interplay between synaptic…
Spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) is an organizing principle of biological neural networks. While synchronous firing of neurons is considered to be an important functional block in the brain, how STDP shapes neural networks possibly…
Understanding of short-term synaptic depression (STSD) and other forms of synaptic plasticity is a topical problem in neuroscience. Here we study the role of STSD in the formation of complex patterns of brain rhythms. We use a cortical…
Conventional mobile tensegrity robots constructed with straight links offer mobility at the cost of locomotion speed. While spherical robots provide highly effective rolling behavior, they often lack the stability required for navigating…
Recent evidence in rodent cerebral cortex and olfactory bulb suggests that short-term dynamics of excitatory synaptic transmission is correlated to stereotypical connectivity motifs. It was observed that neurons with short-term facilitating…
Neural synchrony in the brain at rest is usually variable and intermittent, thus intervals of predominantly synchronized activity are interrupted by intervals of desynchronized activity. Prior studies suggested that this temporal structure…
Legged locomotion shows promise for running in complex, unstructured environments. Designing such legged robots requires considering heterogeneous, multi-domain constraints and variables, from mechanical hardware and geometry choices to…