Objective A growing body of experimental evidence suggests that animals, and in particular humans, arecapable of inferring knowledge about reality from uncertain or incomplete data in a way thatis, according to Bayes’ theorem, mathematically optimal [1, 2]. The case that the brain is, atsome level, a Bayesian inference machine was made much stronger when Ma et al. [3] recentlydescribed a mechanism whereby a neural network could indeed store and manipulateprobability distributions – a mechanism that reduces Bayes’ theorem to a sum [4]. We shallbring together tools and recent advances from in the fields of Complex Networks [5] andComputational Neuroscience [6] with a view to: a) designing methods and algorithms for taskssuch as grammar inference or network routing; b) putting forward neural network modelswhich are capable of integrating Bayesian inference with other necessary brain functions, suchas working memory or information processing; and c) exploring, in greater detail, howBayesian inference could be carried out in realistic biological settings.References[1] M.O. Ernst, M.S. Banks, N. Models, and S. Thresholds, Humans integrate visual and hapticinformation in a statistically optimal fashion, Nature, 415, 429-33 (2002).[2] T. Yang and M.N. Shadlen, Probabilistic reasoning by neurons, Nature, 447, 1075-80 (2007).[3] W.J. Ma, J.M. Beck, P.E. Latham, and A. Pouget, Bayesian inference with probabilisticpopulation codes, Nature Neurosci., 9, 1432-8 (2006).[4] J.M. Beck, W.J. Ma, R. Kiani, T. Hanks, A.K. Churchland, J. Roitman, M.N. Shadlen, P.E.Latham, and A. Pouget, Probabilistic population codes for Bayesian decision making, Neuron,60, 1142-52(2008).[5] S. Johnson, J.J. Torres, J. Marro, and M.A. Muñoz, Entropic origin of disassortativity incomplex networks, Phys. Rev. Lett.. 104, 108702 (2010)[6] S. Johnson, J. Marro, and J.J. Torres, Cluster Reverberation: a mechanism for robust workingmemory without synaptic learning, submitted. Fields of science natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsstatistics and probabilitybayesian statisticsnatural sciencesbiological sciencesneurobiologycomputational neurosciencenatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencedata processingnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencecomputational intelligence Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF - Marie-Curie Action: "Intra-European fellowships for career development" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF) Coordinator IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE Address South kensington campus exhibition road SW7 2AZ London United Kingdom See on map Region London Inner London — West Westminster Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact Brooke Alasya (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window EU contribution No data
