A Theory of How the Brain Might Work

Abstract

I wish to propose a quite speculative new version of the grandmother cell theory to explain how the brain, or parts of it, may work. In particular, I discuss how the visual system may learn to recognize 3D objects. The model would apply directly to the cortical cells involved in visual face recognition. I will also outline the relation of our theory to existing models of the cerebellum and of motor control. Specific biophysical mechanisms can be readily suggested as part of a basic type of neural circuitry that can learn to approximate multidimensional input-output mappings from sets of examples and that is expected to be replicated in different regions of the brain and across modalities. The main points of the theory are: the brain uses modules for multivariate function approximation as basic components of several of its information processing subsystems. HyperBF networks can be implemented in terms of biologically plausible mechanisms and circuitry.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1990
Accession Number
ADA234500

Entities

People

  • Tomaso Poggio

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Brain
  • Cerebellum
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computations
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Vision
  • Detectors
  • Dimensionality Reduction
  • Information Processing
  • Motor Skills
  • Neurons
  • Object Recognition
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Recognition
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional

Readers

  • Neural Network Machine Learning.
  • Neuroscience
  • Theoretical Analysis.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • Biotechnology