Intelligent Design: approaches to optimality
Meets Wed 3:30-5:30 in Uris Hall rm 205
This seminar will explore the question of how efficient the brain is at representing the world. We will consider both computational, developmental and evolutionary constraints on building optimalrepresentations of sensory information.
Among the questions that will be addressed are: Are the same types of computations performed at different parts of the nervous system. Are there universal rules or common networks? For a given brain size, why does a big body make a species stupid? Are there common developmental rules?
And how do such rules relate to the kinds of solutions found in nervous systems?
August 31: Overview and Organization
September 7:
- Parker GA, Maynard Smith J. 1990. Optimality theory in evolutionary biology. Nature 348:27-33
- Gould and Lewontin, "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme"
- Andrews, P.W. , Gangestad, S.W. and Matthews, D. (2002) Adaptationism - how to carry out an adaptationist program. BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2002) 25, 489-553
- Vilarroya, Oscar "Two" many optimalities. (2002) Biology and Philosophy, Heft 2. 251-270.
-
Striedter, G.S. (2005) Chapter 4 "Evolutionary changes in overall brain size" and Chapter 5 "Evolutionary changes in brain region size" in Principles of Brain Evolution Sinauer, Massachusetts pp 93-176
September 14:
- Munakata Y.; Pfaffly J Hebbian learning and development. Developmental Science, Volume 7, Number 2, April 2004, pp. 141-148(8)
- Sterling, Peter (2004) "How retinal circuits optimize the transfer of visual information" in The Visual Neurosciences, V.II L. Chalupa and J.S. Werner, eds. MIT Press: Cambridge 235-259
- Zipser D, Andersen RA (1988) A back-propagation programmed network that simulates response properties of a subset of posterior parietal neurons. Nature 331:679-684
- Recommended by Mark: Rao, Sejnowski 2001. A paper giving a hebbian (STDP) mechanism for temporal difference learning.
September 21:
September 28 and Oct 5:
- Elman 1990. "Finding Structure in Time"
- Smolensky 1999. "Grammar-based Connectionist Approaches to Language"
- Peter: to discuss Shimon's ADIOS model
October 12: FALL BREAK
October 19, 26; November 2:
- A review of what's to come [DOC]
- 1.
- Harvey, P. H. & Clutton-Brock, T. H. (1985) Life history
variation in primates. Evolution 39.
- Passingham, R.E. (1985) Rates of Brain development in mammals including
man. Brain, Behav. Evol. 26: 167-175
- Nee, et al. (2005) The illusion of invariant quantities in life histories.
Science 309 1236-1239
- Kaskan, P., Franco, C., Yamada, E., Silveira, L. C. L., Darlington, R.
& Finlay, B. L. (2004) Peripheral variability and central constancy in mammalian visual system evolution.
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.
- 2.
- Ringo, J. L. 1991 Neuronal interconnection as a function of brain size. Brain, Behavior and
Evolution 38, 1-6.
- Cherniak, C. 1995 Neural component placement. Trends in Neurosciences 18, 522-526.
- Zhang, K. and Sejnowski, T. J. 2000 A universal scaling law between gray
matter and white matter of cerebral cortex. Proc Nat Acad Sci Usa 97, 5621-5626.
- Finlay, B.L. and Brodsky, P. (in press)
Cortical
evolution and development: Conserved programs producing predictable,
disproportionate cortical growth and systematic proliferation of cortical
areas. In Kaas, J. Evolution of Nervous Systems
- 3.
- "Optimal-Wiring Models of Neuroanatomy," C. Cherniak, Z. Mokhtarzada and U. Nodelman, in G.
Ascoli, ed., Computational Neuroanatomy: Principles and Methods (Humana, 2002).
- Young, Malcolm P. "Connectional Organisation and Function in the Macaque
Cerebral Cortex."
- Philip Lieberman, Human Language and Our Reptilian Brain: the subcortical bases
of speech, syntax, and thought. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44.1 (2001) 32-51
November 23: Intelligent Design discussion.
November 30: