Connectionists: New book release: "How to build a brain: A neural architecture for biological cognition"

[Daniel Rasmussen]

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the release of a new book based on the work 
in our lab:

Chris Eliasmith. How to build a brain: A neural architecture for 
biological cognition. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2013.

One goal of researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and artificial 
intelligence is to build theoretical models that are able to explain the 
flexibility and adaptiveness of biological systems. "How to build a 
brain" provides a detailed guided exploration of a new cognitive 
architecture that takes biological detail seriously, while addressing 
cognitive phenomena. Examples of such models are provided, and they are 
shown to explain a wide range of data.  These models are not introduced 
as independent considerations of brain function, but instead integrated 
to give rise to what is currently the world's largest functional brain 
model.[1]

All of the software used in the book is available for free at 
http://www.nengo.ca. The book includes 8 detailed, hands-on tutorials 
that exploit this software, providing practical experience with the 
concepts and models presented throughout. In addition, all the source 
code for this project is available at 
https://github.com/ctn-waterloo/nengo_1.4 for those looking to work with 
(or contribute to) the development version.

We hope this book will spark some interesting conversations, and eagerly 
invite any comments or discussion.

Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience
University of Waterloo


[1] Eliasmith,C. T.C. Stewart, X. Choo, T. Bekolay, T. DeWolf, Y. Tang, 
and D. Rasmussen. A large-scale model of the functioning brain. Science, 
338:1202-1205, 2012.





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/pipermail/connectionists/attachments/20130624/0a84c281/attachment.html>