A spiking neural model of adaptive arm control

Abstract

We present a spiking neuron model of the motor cortices and cerebellum of the motor control system. The model consists of anatomically organized spiking neurons encompassing premotor, primary motor, and cerebellar cortices. The model proposes novel neural computations within these areas to control a nonlinear three-link arm model that can adapt to unknown changes in arm dynamics and kinematic structure. We demonstrate the mathematical stability of both forms of adaptation, suggesting that this is a robust approach for common biological problems of changing body size (e.g. during growth), and unexpected dynamic perturbations (e.g. when moving through different media, such as water or mud). To demonstrate the plausibility of the proposed neural mechanisms, we show that the model accounts for data across 19 studies of the motor control system. These data include a mix of behavioural and neural spiking activity, across subjects performing adaptive and static tasks. Given this proposed characterization of the biological processes involved in motor control of the arm, we provide several experimentally testable predictions that distinguish our model from previous work.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Nov 30, 2016
Source ID
10.1098/rspb.2016.2134

Entities

People

  • Chris Eliasmith
  • Jean-jacques Slotine
  • Terrence C. Stewart
  • Travis DeWolf

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Canada Foundation for Innovation
  • Canada Research Chair
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
  • University of Waterloo

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Neural Network Machine Learning.
  • Neuroscience
  • Robotics and Automation.