Laboratory for Dynamics of Emergent Intelligence

Objective:

The important property of Brain-Style Intelligence is considered to be the ability to create the self-constraint under indefinite environmental changes. The information system of an individual organism develops with the time evolution of the environment to lead inseparable and irreversible processes. The system needs to keep the consistency of their intelligence with their evolving environments in an emergent way.

Thus, the neural principle to describe such an emergent process is essential to clarify the Brain-style intelligence. We hypothesize that the dynamical complexity in the brain contributes to the representation of the emergent process in indefinite environments. Our research aim is to clarify the dynamical theory of emergent intelligence where the self-constraint is instantaneously created to work for meaningful information processing.

The special emphasis is laid on synchronization of neural activities within and among individual cortical areas. The neural network models are constructed and evaluated for the theoretical studies. Those results are furthermore devoted to the comparison with experiments in neurophysiological and psychological studies. Our final goal is to propose the design theory of emergent intelligence available not only for the technological development but also for enlightening the human mind.

Main Topics:

1. Memory formation by theta phase coding in the hippocampus

     Based on the experimental evidence on the theta rhythm dependent firing of rat hippocampus cells, theoretical studies as well as data analyses of experimental data are devoted for clarifying neural principle of memory formation of one-time experience.

2. Design of intelligent systems based on theories of brain dynamics

     To construct the design theory of the intelligent system, the hippocampus model is extended into a hierarchical system including sensory-perception and executive control. Fundamental studies are developed with computer experiments and implementation in robotics.

3. Measurements of spatio-temporal structures of human brain activities in mental tasks

     Scalp EEG, intracranial EEG and fMRI are applied to identify the brain activities in the metal tasks. Statistical analyses of these measurements are developed to clarify the spatio-temporal structures of the activities.

Review Article:

• Yamaguchi Y, "Neural dynamics in Hippocampal Memory Formation via Theta Rhythm"   RIKEN BSI News No.22, Nov. 2003