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The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory

Higher-order cognitive mechanisms (HOCM), such as planning, cognitive branching, switching, etc., are known to be the outcomes of a unique neural organizations and dynamics between various regions of the frontal lobe. Although some recent anatomical and neuroimaging studies have shed light on the ar...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Alnajjar, Fady, Yamashita, Yuichi, Tani, Jun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3575058/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23423881
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2013.00002
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author Alnajjar, Fady
Yamashita, Yuichi
Tani, Jun
author_facet Alnajjar, Fady
Yamashita, Yuichi
Tani, Jun
author_sort Alnajjar, Fady
collection PubMed
description Higher-order cognitive mechanisms (HOCM), such as planning, cognitive branching, switching, etc., are known to be the outcomes of a unique neural organizations and dynamics between various regions of the frontal lobe. Although some recent anatomical and neuroimaging studies have shed light on the architecture underlying the formation of such mechanisms, the neural dynamics and the pathways in and between the frontal lobe to form and/or to tune the stability level of its working memory remain controversial. A model to clarify this aspect is therefore required. In this study, we propose a simple neurocomputational model that suggests the basic concept of how HOCM, including the cognitive branching and switching in particular, may mechanistically emerge from time-based neural interactions. The proposed model is constructed such that its functional and structural hierarchy mimics, to a certain degree, the biological hierarchy that is believed to exist between local regions in the frontal lobe. Thus, the hierarchy is attained not only by the force of the layout architecture of the neural connections but also through distinct types of neurons, each with different time properties. To validate the model, cognitive branching and switching tasks were simulated in a physical humanoid robot driven by the model. Results reveal that separation between the lower and the higher-level neurons in such a model is an essential factor to form an appropriate working memory to handle cognitive branching and switching. The analyses of the obtained result also illustrates that the breadth of this separation is important to determine the characteristics of the resulting memory, either static memory or dynamic memory. This work can be considered as a joint research between synthetic and empirical studies, which can open an alternative research area for better understanding of brain mechanisms.
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spelling pubmed-35750582013-02-19 The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory Alnajjar, Fady Yamashita, Yuichi Tani, Jun Front Neurorobot Neuroscience Higher-order cognitive mechanisms (HOCM), such as planning, cognitive branching, switching, etc., are known to be the outcomes of a unique neural organizations and dynamics between various regions of the frontal lobe. Although some recent anatomical and neuroimaging studies have shed light on the architecture underlying the formation of such mechanisms, the neural dynamics and the pathways in and between the frontal lobe to form and/or to tune the stability level of its working memory remain controversial. A model to clarify this aspect is therefore required. In this study, we propose a simple neurocomputational model that suggests the basic concept of how HOCM, including the cognitive branching and switching in particular, may mechanistically emerge from time-based neural interactions. The proposed model is constructed such that its functional and structural hierarchy mimics, to a certain degree, the biological hierarchy that is believed to exist between local regions in the frontal lobe. Thus, the hierarchy is attained not only by the force of the layout architecture of the neural connections but also through distinct types of neurons, each with different time properties. To validate the model, cognitive branching and switching tasks were simulated in a physical humanoid robot driven by the model. Results reveal that separation between the lower and the higher-level neurons in such a model is an essential factor to form an appropriate working memory to handle cognitive branching and switching. The analyses of the obtained result also illustrates that the breadth of this separation is important to determine the characteristics of the resulting memory, either static memory or dynamic memory. This work can be considered as a joint research between synthetic and empirical studies, which can open an alternative research area for better understanding of brain mechanisms. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3575058/ /pubmed/23423881 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2013.00002 Text en Copyright © 2013 Alnajjar, Yamashita and Tani. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Alnajjar, Fady
Yamashita, Yuichi
Tani, Jun
The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
title The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
title_full The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
title_fullStr The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
title_full_unstemmed The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
title_short The hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
title_sort hierarchical and functional connectivity of higher-order cognitive mechanisms: neurorobotic model to investigate the stability and flexibility of working memory
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3575058/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23423881
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2013.00002
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