dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaCharacterizing Self-Developing Biological Neural Networks: A First Step Towards their Application To Computing Systems
| Authors | Hugues Berry, Olivier Temam |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0505021 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0505021 |
Abstract
Carbon nanotubes are often seen as the only alternative technology to silicon transistors. While they are the most likely short-term one, other longer-term alternatives should be studied as well. While contemplating biological neurons as an alternative component may seem preposterous at first sight, significant recent progress in CMOS-neuron interface suggests this direction may not be unrealistic; moreover, biological neurons are known to self-assemble into very large networks capable of complex information processing tasks, something that has yet to be achieved with other emerging technologies. The first step to designing computing systems on top of biological neurons is to build an abstract model of self-assembled biological neural networks, much like computer architects manipulate abstract models of transistors and circuits. In this article, we propose a first model of the structure of biological neural networks. We provide empirical evidence that this model matches the biological neural networks found in living organisms, and exhibits the small-world graph structure properties commonly found in many large and self-organized systems, including biological neural networks. More importantly, we extract the simple local rules and characteristics governing the growth of such networks, enabling the development of potentially large but realistic biological neural networks, as would be needed for complex information processing/computing tasks. Based on this model, future work will be targeted to understanding the evolution and learning properties of such networks, and how they can be used to build computing systems.
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"abstract": "Carbon nanotubes are often seen as the only alternative technology to silicon\ntransistors. While they are the most likely short-term one, other longer-term\nalternatives should be studied as well. While contemplating biological neurons\nas an alternative component may seem preposterous at first sight, significant\nrecent progress in CMOS-neuron interface suggests this direction may not be\nunrealistic; moreover, biological neurons are known to self-assemble into very\nlarge networks capable of complex information processing tasks, something that\nhas yet to be achieved with other emerging technologies. The first step to\ndesigning computing systems on top of biological neurons is to build an\nabstract model of self-assembled biological neural networks, much like computer\narchitects manipulate abstract models of transistors and circuits. In this\narticle, we propose a first model of the structure of biological neural\nnetworks. We provide empirical evidence that this model matches the biological\nneural networks found in living organisms, and exhibits the small-world graph\nstructure properties commonly found in many large and self-organized systems,\nincluding biological neural networks. More importantly, we extract the simple\nlocal rules and characteristics governing the growth of such networks, enabling\nthe development of potentially large but realistic biological neural networks,\nas would be needed for complex information processing/computing tasks. Based on\nthis model, future work will be targeted to understanding the evolution and\nlearning properties of such networks, and how they can be used to build\ncomputing systems.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0505021",
"authors": [
"Hugues Berry",
"Olivier Temam"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.NC",
"cs.AR",
"cs.NE",
"nlin.AO"
],
"title": "Characterizing Self-Developing Biological Neural Networks: A First Step Towards their Application To Computing Systems",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0505021"
},
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