Category Archives: Project

Contains documents that define the project and its goals

What can larvae do?

State of the art: Drosophila melanogaster is a small fly that has been used as one of the major biological research tools for around 100 years; much of what we know about genetics, neuroscience and development, and now learning, comes from this … Continue reading

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How do larvae do it?

State of the art: To bridge the gap between cognitive learning capabilities and neural circuits, we need to understand behavioural control. We can tackle this directly in the larvae. Placed on an agarose substrate in a petri-dish (as is the standard situation … Continue reading

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Learning architectures for robot control

State of the art: Many architectures have been proposed for robot control that combine innate, low-level sensorimotor controllers with learning mechanisms to refine the behaviour. Perhaps most widely deployed are ‘hybrid’ architectures, in which the upper layers use explicit knowledge representation and … Continue reading

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Understanding the neural circuit

We have the unique opportunity to give a definitive answer as to how associative learning is integrated with action in a biological brain by combining neurogenetics for functional dissection with modelling in a one-to-one description of neural computation in the larvae linked … Continue reading

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Enhancing the learning capabilities of machines

Our detailed probing of the specific motor control and neural circuit in the Pavlovian behavioural paradigm will be complemented by a more wide-ranging evaluation of the complete capacity of the larvae, and its reproduction in a real-world robotic device. How does operant … Continue reading

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Understanding how associative learning is embedded in behavioural control

We want machines that are able to learn as quickly and effectively as animals. Learning in biological systems is not just acquisition of information, but the ability to change – improve – behaviour. A mechanism for improved action choice seems apparent for … Continue reading

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