Neuromodulation in a learning robot: interactions between neural plasticity and behavior

Author

Sporns, O. ; Alexander, William H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Psychol., Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN, USA

Volume

4

fYear

2003

fDate

20-24 July 2003

Firstpage

2789

Abstract

We investigate the effects of behavioral activity on the development of patterns of synaptic connections in a model of neuromodulation embedded in an autonomous robot. Robot behavior produces clustered spatial distributions of rewarding objects in environments initially containing a high density of uniformly distributed objects. The spatial clustering of the rewarding objects restricts robot movements to sectors of high reward density, alters patterns of connections signaling predictions about reward timing, and changes the temporal profile of interactions between the robot and the objects. These effects are outcomes of embodied behavioral activity and are not pre-programmed or externally controlled. We discuss our results in the context of the reciprocal coupling of neural dynamics, behavioral activity and stimulus distributions.

Keywords

behavioural sciences; learning (artificial intelligence); neural nets; robots; autonomous robot; behavioral activity; clustered spatial distributions; embodied behavioral activity; learning robot; neural dynamics; neural plasticity; neuromodulation; reward timing; spatial clustering; stimulus distributions; synaptic connection patterns; temporal profile; uniformly distributed objects; Computer simulation; Context modeling; Gene expression; Mobile robots; Morphology; Neurons; Predictive models; Psychology; Shape control; Timing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Neural Networks, 2003. Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on

ISSN

1098-7576

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7898-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IJCNN.2003.1224010

Filename

1224010