Matter and Mind Matter

Abstract

As a result of a hundred million years of evolution, living animals have adapted extremely well to their ecological niche. Such adaptation implies species-specific interactions with their immediate environment by processing sensory cues and responding with appropriate behavior. Understanding how living creatures perform pattern recognition and cognitive tasks is of particular importance for computing architectures: by studying these information pathways refined over eons of evolution, researchers may be able to streamline the process of developing more highly advanced, energy efficient autonomous systems. With the advent of novel electronic and ionic components along with a deeper understanding of information pathways in living species, a plethora of opportunities to develop completely novel information processing avenues are within reach. Here, we describe the basal information pathways in nervous systems, from the local neuron level to the entire nervous system network. The dual importance of local learning rules is addressed, from spike timing dependent plasticity at the neuron level to the interwoven morphological and dynamical mechanisms of the global network. Basal biological principles are highlighted, including phylogenies, ontogenesis, and homeostasis, with particular emphasis on network topology and dynamics. While in machine learning system training is performed on virgin networks without any a priori knowledge, the approach proposed here distinguishes itself unambiguously by employing growth mechanisms as a guideline to design novel computing architectures. Including fundamental biological information pathways that explore the spatiotemporal fundamentals of nervous systems has untapped potential for the development of entirely novel information processing systems. Finally, a benchmark for neuromorphic systems is suggested.