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Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience

Valentino Braitenberg reported his seminal thought experiment in 1984 using reactive automatons or vehicles with relatively simple sensorimotor connections as models for seemingly complex cognitive processes in biological brains. Braitenberg's work, meant as a metaphor for biological life encom...

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Autores principales: Shaikh, Danish, Rañó, Ignacio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525016/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33042967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.565963
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author Shaikh, Danish
Rañó, Ignacio
author_facet Shaikh, Danish
Rañó, Ignacio
author_sort Shaikh, Danish
collection PubMed
description Valentino Braitenberg reported his seminal thought experiment in 1984 using reactive automatons or vehicles with relatively simple sensorimotor connections as models for seemingly complex cognitive processes in biological brains. Braitenberg's work, meant as a metaphor for biological life encompassed a deep knowledge of and served as an analogy for the multitude of neural processes and pathways that underlie animal behavior, suggesting that seemingly complex behavior may arise from relatively simple designs. Braitenberg vehicles have been adopted in robotics and artificial life research for sensor-driven navigation behaviors in robots, such as localizing sound and chemical sources, orienting toward or away from current flow under water etc. The neuroscience community has benefitted from applying Braitenberg's bottom-up approach toward understanding analogous neural mechanisms underpinning his models of animal behavior. We present a summary of the latest studies of Braitenberg vehicles for bio-inspired navigation and relate the results to experimental findings on the neural basis of navigation behavior in animals. Based on these studies, we motivate the important role of Braitenberg vehicles as computational tools to inform research in behavioral neuroscience.
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spelling pubmed-75250162020-10-09 Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience Shaikh, Danish Rañó, Ignacio Front Bioeng Biotechnol Bioengineering and Biotechnology Valentino Braitenberg reported his seminal thought experiment in 1984 using reactive automatons or vehicles with relatively simple sensorimotor connections as models for seemingly complex cognitive processes in biological brains. Braitenberg's work, meant as a metaphor for biological life encompassed a deep knowledge of and served as an analogy for the multitude of neural processes and pathways that underlie animal behavior, suggesting that seemingly complex behavior may arise from relatively simple designs. Braitenberg vehicles have been adopted in robotics and artificial life research for sensor-driven navigation behaviors in robots, such as localizing sound and chemical sources, orienting toward or away from current flow under water etc. The neuroscience community has benefitted from applying Braitenberg's bottom-up approach toward understanding analogous neural mechanisms underpinning his models of animal behavior. We present a summary of the latest studies of Braitenberg vehicles for bio-inspired navigation and relate the results to experimental findings on the neural basis of navigation behavior in animals. Based on these studies, we motivate the important role of Braitenberg vehicles as computational tools to inform research in behavioral neuroscience. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-09-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7525016/ /pubmed/33042967 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.565963 Text en Copyright © 2020 Shaikh and Rañó. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Bioengineering and Biotechnology
Shaikh, Danish
Rañó, Ignacio
Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience
title Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience
title_full Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience
title_fullStr Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience
title_full_unstemmed Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience
title_short Braitenberg Vehicles as Computational Tools for Research in Neuroscience
title_sort braitenberg vehicles as computational tools for research in neuroscience
topic Bioengineering and Biotechnology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525016/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33042967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.565963
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