Connectionists: New paper on why modules evolve, and how to evolve modular neural networks

[John Bullinaria]

Further references along these lines can be found in my own attempts  
to understand this topic by simulating how restricted neural  
connectivity proportions can lead to the evolution of modularity:

Bullinaria, J.A. (2007). Understanding the Emergence of Modularity in  
Neural Systems. Cognitive Science, 31, 673-695.

Bullinaria, J.A. (2009). The Importance of Neurophysiological  
Constraints for Modelling the Emergence of Modularity. In: D. Heinke  
& E. Mavritsaki (Eds), Computational Modelling in Behavioural  
Neuroscience: Closing the Gap Between Neurophysiology and Behaviour,  
187-208. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. (http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~jxb/ 
PUBS/INCMEM.pdf)

John.


On 24 Feb, 2013, at 03:49, Terry Sejnowski wrote:

> G. Mitchison, Neuronal branching patterns and the economy of  
> cortical wiring, Proc. Roy. Soc. London B Biol. Sci. 245 (1991) 151 
> {158
>
> D.B. Chklovskii, C.F. Stevens, Wiring optimization in the brain,  
> Neural Information Processing Systems (1999)
>
> Koulakov AA, Chklovskii DB. Orientation preference patterns in  
> mammalian visual cortex: a wire length minimization approach.   
> Neuron. 2001 Feb;29(2):519-27.
>
> Chklovskii DB, Schikorski T, Stevens CF. Wiring optimization in  
> cortical circuits. Neuron. 2002 Apr 25;34(3):341-7.
>
> Terry
>
> -----
>
>> The paper mentions that Santiago Ram<F3>n y Cajal already pointed out
>> that evolution has created mostly short connections in animal brains.
>>
>> Minimization of connection costs should also encourage  
>> modularization,
>> e.g., http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.0118 (2012).
>>
>> But who first had such a wire length term in an objective function to
>> be minimized by evolutionary computation or other machine learning
>> methods?
>> I am aware of pioneering work by Legenstein and Maass:
>>
>> R. A. Legenstein and W. Maass. Neural circuits for pattern  
>> recognition
>> with small total wire length. Theoretical Computer Science,
>> 287:239-249, 2002.
>> R. A. Legenstein and W. Maass. Wire length as a circuit complexity
>> measure. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 70:53-72, 2005.
>>
>> Is there any earlier relevant work? Pointers will be appreciated.
>>
>> Juergen Schmidhuber
>> http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/whatsnew.html