Researchers at Mila and IVADO introduce a new neurocomputational model of the human brain that could bridge the gap in understanding AI and the biological mechanisms underlying mental disorders.
A new study introduces a new neurocomputational model of the human brain that could shed light on how the brain develops complex cognitive abilities and advance neural artificial intelligence research. Published Sept. 19, the study was carried out by an international group of researchers from the Institut Pasteur and Sorbonne Université in Paris, the CHU Sainte-Justine, Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, and Université de Montréal.
The model, which made the cover of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), describes neural development over three hierarchical levels of information processing:
The model solves three tasks of increasing complexity across those levels, from visual recognition to cognitive manipulation of conscious percepts. Each time, the team introduced a new core mechanism to enable it to progress.
The results highlight two fundamental mechanisms for the multilevel development of cognitive abilities in biological neural networks:
"Our model demonstrates how the neuro-AI convergence highlights biological mechanisms and cognitive architectures that can fuel the development of the next generation of artificial intelligence and even ultimately lead to artificial consciousness,” said team member Guillaume Dumas, an assistant professor of computational psychiatry at UdeM, and a principal investigator at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre.
Reaching this milestone may require integrating the social dimension of cognition, he added. The researchers are now looking at integrating biological and social dimensions at play in human cognition. The team has already pioneered the first simulation of two whole brains in interaction.
Anchoring future computational models in biological and social realities will not only continue to shed light on the core mechanisms underlying cognition, the team believes, but will also help provide a unique bridge to artificial intelligence towards the only known system with advanced social consciousness: the human brain.
Publication: Konstantin Volzhenin, et al., Multilevel development of cognitive abilities in an artificial neural network, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2201304119.
Original Story Source: University of Montreal