From insects to robots: how brains make predictions and ignore distractions. This project aims to address fundamental questions in neuroscience and to integrate this biological understanding with the development of leading-edge robotics. Whether a human catching a ball or a dragonfly feeding in a swarm, brains have the remarkable ability to predict the future location of moving targets. The brain predicts in the presence of distractions and even if the target disappears, for example, when hidden ....From insects to robots: how brains make predictions and ignore distractions. This project aims to address fundamental questions in neuroscience and to integrate this biological understanding with the development of leading-edge robotics. Whether a human catching a ball or a dragonfly feeding in a swarm, brains have the remarkable ability to predict the future location of moving targets. The brain predicts in the presence of distractions and even if the target disappears, for example, when hidden behind another object. This project will investigate how brains use both environmental and internal information to select a target and predict its future location. By implementing bio-inspired computations in hardware, this project aims to provide significant benefits such as improving autonomous systems for defence, health and transportation.Read moreRead less
Engineered plant receptors as orthogonal neuronal switches. This project aims to develop synthetic biology methods to study brain function by utilising engineered plant receptors. This project will expand our ability to manipulate nerve cell function with high specificity and without side effects in freely behaving animals. Plant receptors will be developed into molecular tools in an iterative process that improves key properties using rational protein design. Expected outcomes include innovativ ....Engineered plant receptors as orthogonal neuronal switches. This project aims to develop synthetic biology methods to study brain function by utilising engineered plant receptors. This project will expand our ability to manipulate nerve cell function with high specificity and without side effects in freely behaving animals. Plant receptors will be developed into molecular tools in an iterative process that improves key properties using rational protein design. Expected outcomes include innovative and broadly-applicable neuroscience methods and an understanding of receptors involved in plant growth and defense. Benefits of this project include an enhanced capacity to generate knowledge, multidisciplinary training opportunities and patentable synthetic biology technologies.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100548
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$359,000.00
Summary
Neural and robotic correlates of predictive coding and selective attention. Whether a human catching a ball, a dog leaping at a frisbee or a dragonfly hunting prey amidst a swarm, brains both large and small have evolved the ability to focus attention on one moving target, even in the presence of distracters. This project aims to investigate how brains solve this challenging problem by recording the activity of dragonfly neurons that selectively attend to one target whilst ignoring others. The p ....Neural and robotic correlates of predictive coding and selective attention. Whether a human catching a ball, a dog leaping at a frisbee or a dragonfly hunting prey amidst a swarm, brains both large and small have evolved the ability to focus attention on one moving target, even in the presence of distracters. This project aims to investigate how brains solve this challenging problem by recording the activity of dragonfly neurons that selectively attend to one target whilst ignoring others. The project aims to examine how expectation and attention are encoded in the brain and will build an autonomous robot using computational models bio-inspired from this neuronal processing. Robots capable of visually perceiving and interacting with targets in natural environments have applications in health, surveillance and defence.Read moreRead less