[...]... to the organism—while the activity of the environment will be responsive in turn to aspects of the current activity of the organism, the outputs of the organism The inputs and outputs that actually enter into a theory of the organism (or machine) are a small sampling of the flux of its interactions with the rest of the universe There is essentially no limit to how many variables one could include in the. .. require not only improvements in the learning methods presented in Section I.3, but also fuller understanding of architectures based on networks of networks, with initial structures well constrained for the task at hand Part II: Road Maps: A Guided Tour of Brain Theory and Neural Networks The reader who wants to survey a major theme of brain theory and neural networks, rather than seeking articles in... know little of brain function, and relatively few neuroscientists have a deep understanding of brain theory or know much of neural computing beyond the basic ideas of Hebbian plasticity and, perhaps, backpropagation (see Section I.3) However, the level of interchange has increased since the first edition of this Handbook appeared, and this new edition is designed to further increase the flow of information... the editorial advisors, the authors, and the hundreds of reviewers who so Preface to the First Edition xiii constructively contributed to the final polishing of the articles that now appear in Part III; to Doug Gordon and the copy editors and typesetters who transformed the diverse styles of the manuscripts into the style of the Handbook; and to the graduate students who helped so much with the proofreading... change the strengths of connections between the neurons Brain theory is centered on “computational neuroscience,” the use of computational techniques to model biological neural networks, but also includes attempts to understand the brain and its function through a variety of theoretical constructs and computer analogies In fact, as the following pages reveal, much of brain theory is not about neural networks. .. The aim of this Handbook is to fill that gap, presenting the entire range of the following topics: detailed models of single neurons; analysis of a wide variety of neurobiological systems; “connectionist” studies; mathematical analyses of abstract neural networks; and technological applications of adaptive, artificial neural networks and related methodologies The excitement, and the frustration, of these... lengthen—all the neuron can do is stop sending it commands to contract the muscles of an animal are usually arranged in pairs The contraction of one member of the pair will then act around a pivot to cause the expansion of the other member of the pair Thus, one set of muscles extends the elbow joint, while another set flexes the elbow joint To extend the elbow joint, we do not signal the flexors to lengthen,... and computation, and to distinguish among the various levels of investigation that exist (from the molecular to the system level) in these related, but by no means identical, disciplines The present section provides a fuller sense of the disciplines that come together in brain theory and neural networks, and of the different levels of analysis involved in the study of complex biological and technological... competing and cooperating networks for motor control and its 12 Part I: Background planning Brain theory and neural computing thus have to address the analysis and design, respectively, of networks of networks (see, e.g., HYBRID CONNECTIONIST/SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS and MODULAR AND HIERARCHICAL LEARNING SYSTEMS) Minds Here, I want to distinguish the brain from the mind (the realm of the “mental”) In great part, brain. .. preliminary list of over 100 articles and possible authors, and to recruit the first members of the Editorial Advisory Board to help expand the list of articles and focus on the search for authors A very satisfying number of authors invited in the first round accepted my invitation, and many of these added their voices to the Editorial Advisory Board in suggesting further topics and authors for the Handbook I . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h1" alt="" The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks This Page Intentionally Left Blank The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks Second Edition E DITED BY Michael. number of the articles in the first edition remain worthy of reading in themselves, but the aim has been to make the new edition a self-contained introduction to brain theory and neural networks. “in the style of the brain at a more abstract level than that of individual biological neurons. Many texts have described limited aspects of one subfield or another of brain theory and neural networks,