Abstract:  

Brain-based robots and neuromorphic engineering have enormous potential for furthering our understanding of the brain. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss how by embodying models of the brain on robotic platforms, researchers can investigate the roots of biological intelligence and work towards the development of truly intelligent machines. I will give examples of biologically inspired robot designs and neural architectures that lead to brain-based robots and consider the development of cognitive robots that display the adaptability and intelligence of biological organisms. In the second part of my talk, I will outline aspects of neuronal processing and computational issues related to modeling these processes. Although many of these algorithms can be efficiently realized in specialized hardware, we present a case study of simulation of the visual cortex using a GPU based simulation environment that is readily usable by computer scientists and efficient enough to construct very large networks comparable to brain networks.