title: A large-scale model of the functioning brain.
abstract: A central challenge for cognitive and systems neuroscience is to relate the incredibly complex behavior of animals to the equally complex activity of their brains. Recently described, large-scale neural models have not bridged this gap between neural activity and biological function. In this work, we present a 2.5-million-neuron model of the brain (called "Spaun") that bridges this gap by exhibiting many different behaviors. The model is presented only with visual image sequences, and it draws all of its responses with a physically modeled arm. Although simplified, the model captures many aspects of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and psychological behavior, which we demonstrate via eight diverse tasks.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2J 3G1, Canada. celiasmith@uwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eliasmith
authors.forename: Terrence C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.forename: Xuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Choo
authors.forename: Trevor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bekolay
authors.forename: Travis
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: DeWolf
authors.forename: Yichuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Charlie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
mesh_terms: D001519:Behavior; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D012984:Software