Behavioral Control Systems
(CBNS/PSYC 127) Spring 2008:

Lecture:  OLMH 1136, TR, 11:10 am - 12:30 pm, 4 cr.
Prof. Scott Currie, Office: Spieth 2380, Tel: 827-2411
Go to Scott Currie's Neuroscience Faculty page
Office hours: S.C. -  TR 1:30 - 2:30 pm
T.A.: Dan Welch
 
 

NEUROSCIENCE & NEUROTECHNOLOGY IN THE NEWS:
The "Blue Brain" project

Artificial arm listens to brain

Monkeys think, moving artificial arm as own

Monkey brains control robot arms

Do flies have free will?

Mirror neurons and autism
Brain chip reads man's thoughts

Robotic salamander may offer lessons in evolution

There is no textbook.  Instead, there is a COURSE READER available at the Bookstore.

"Swiftly the head-mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of sub-patterns. Now as the waking body rouses, subpatterns of this great harmony of activity stretch down into the unlit tracks of the stalk-piece of the scheme. Strings of flashing and travelling sparks engage the lengths of it. This means that the body is up and rises to meet its waking day."  

- Sir Charles Sherrington, Man On His Nature, The Gifford Lectures, 1941 (1st edition), pg. 225.

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"Have you allowed yourself to wonder lately?  There are certain dividends from dwelling now and then on the incredible achievements of the nervous system.  Is a sonnet the most adequate stimulus for you?  Or a piano concerto?  Among infra-human forms, is the circling hawk, or the bat flying in the woods, or the contemplation of 1010 neurons each receiving ordered arrays of impulses from many others, the most adequate stimulus to excite your sense of wonder?  I would like to lift up several conclusions from such contemplation.  For one, we cannot wait for a stepwise unravelling, up from the molecule; simultaneous attack on all levels is called for.  More than anywhere else, we can expect emergents in neurobiology - new principles of operation that cannot be predicted from our incomplete knowledge of lower levels.  If greater complexity, more levels and more intricate achievements are likely to conceal new basic principles of system function, there should be more basic discoveries awaiting the explorer of the behaviour machinery than in any other field of knowledge."

- Theodore Bullock, Strategies for blind physiologists with elephantine problems, S.E.B. Symposia, 1966, v.20.

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"Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day.  The mind receives a myriad impressions - trivial, fantastic, evanescent ... an incessant shower of innumerable atoms ... surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end."

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 1925.

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“No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.”

- Alan Turing, British mathematician, WWII code-breaker and founder of computer science, 1943.  Turing was eating lunch in the ATT Bell Labs cafeteria in New York, seated amongst ATT junior executives, when he made this loud pronouncement (from Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges).

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"Tell me where is Fancy bred,

Or in the heart or in the head?

How begot, how nourishèd?

Reply, reply.

It is engender'd in the eyes,

With gazing fed; and Fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies."

- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2. 

 

GRADING
Quizes        (10%, weekly in Discussion, beginning on the 1st week)
Midterm     (40%, May 6, covering weeks 1-5 lectures & readings #1 - 9)
Final Exam (50%, June 12, cumulative)
 
 

WEEK
TOPIC
READINGS
1

  Neuroethology of Motor Systems: goals and experimental strategies

  Command Neurons and Command Systems
  -   Mauthner neurons and Startle Behavior in Fish

  Web Links: 
  -  Theodore Bullock - The Goals of Neuroethology (1990) (PDF file download)

Readings #1, 2

2

  Command Neurons and Command Systems (cont')
  -   Mauthner neurons and Startle Behavior in Fish
  -   Command Systems for locomotion
  Web Links: 
  -  Joe Fetcho's zebrafish lab
  -  Sten Grillner - Neural networks for vertebrate locomotion (PDF file download)
  Movies:
  -  Zebrafish Mauthner cells & startle behavior (from Dr. Joe Fetcho's lab)

Readings #2, 3

3

  Spinal Cord Reflexes and Motor Patterns
  Web Links:
  -  Spinal motor structures

  -  Sir Charles Sherrington - Nobel Lecture, 1932

Reading #4

4   Central Pattern Generators (CPGs):Clione
  -  “Building blocks” of pattern generating networks
  -   Clione swimming: a simple CPG
  Web Links:
  -  Yuri Arshavsky
  -  Richard Satterlie

 Movies:
  - Clione swimming (2.66 MB)

  - Clione swimming and hunting (large lengthy files, ~80 MB)

Readings #5, 6

4

  Neuromodulation of multifunctional networks 
  -  the crustacean stomatogastric (STG) nervous system 
  Web Links:
  -  Dan Hartline's STG web page
  -  H.-G. Heinzel's STG web page

Readings #7, 8
5

  Simple vertebrate model systems for locomotionBrook Lamprey

  -  frog embryo (tadpole) & lamprey

  Web Links:
 - Alan Roberts - Xenopus tadpole research

  - Sten Grillner - Neural networks for vertebrate (lamprey) locomotion (PDF file download)

Reading #9
May 6   [Midterm Exam, Tuesday May 6]  

6

  Artificial neural networks and computer simulationRashevsky OR unit
  Web Links:
  -  Neural networks (on MIT  CogNet)
  -  The TinkerToy computer

  -  What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain

  -  Mouse brain simulated on computer  

  -  Download Neil Fraser's BrainBox and Recog programs

Reading #10

7

  Development of Behavior
  -  innate development (fixed action patterns, chick limb movements)
Konrad Lorenz and his babies
  Web Links: 
  -  Konrad Lorenz & Niko Tinbergen

  -  Viktor Hamburger obituary 2001 (by Dale Purves)
 
   Movies:
  -  Egg rolling "fixed action pattern" in goose
  -  Chick hatching

Reading #11

8

  Development of Behavior (continued)Spectogram display of white-crowned sparrow song
  -  innate development (chick limb movements, continued)
  -  experience-mediated development (imprinting)
  -  mixed innate / experience-mediated development (birdsong)
  Web Links: 
  -  BirdSongs webpage

  -  Download Spectogram sound-analysis software

  -  Download Raven sound-analysis software

Reading #11

9

    Cortical control of voluntary movement
   -  phylogenetic comparisons
   -  mammalian motor cortex
   -  descending pathways

  Web Links:
  -  Apostolos Georgopoulos' Lab

  -  The little man inside your brain (NPR radio)

Reading #12

10

  Cortical control of voluntary movement (continued)
   -  descending pathways, continued
   -  cortical "neuronal population vectors"
   -  the emerging "hybrid brain-machine" technology3-D neuronal population vector (Georgopoulos lab)
  Web Links:
  -  Basic motor pathways
  -  Mind over matter
  -  John Chapin's Lab

  -  Miguel Nicolelis' Lab

  -  Andrew Schwartz's Lab

 

Reading #12

June 12

   [Final Exam, Thursday June 12, 11:30 am - 2:30 pm]  

 NRSC/PSYC 127 RESERVE READING LIST:

(Available at Printing and Reprographics and on reserve at the Science Library.)

    1.  Young, D.  (1989)  Introduction, Ch. 1 and Nerve Cells, Ch. 2.  In: Nerve Cells and Animal Behaviour. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, NY.

    2.  Young, D.  (1989)  Startle Behaviour, Ch. 6., pp. 125-6, 143-55.  In: Nerve Cells and Animal Behaviour. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, NY.

    3.  Pearson, K.G.  (1976)  The control of walking.  Sci. Am. 235 (6): 72-87.

    4.  Kandel, E.R., Schwartz, J.H. and Jessell, T.M.  (1995)  Spinal reflexes, Ch. 28.  In: Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior.  Appleton and Lange, Norwalk, CT.

    5.  Delcomyn, F.  (1980)  Neural basis of rhythmic behavior in animals.  Science 210: 492-498.

    6.  Getting, P.A.  (1985)  Hypotheses for mechanisms of pattern generation derived from studies of small systems.  In: Motor Control: From Movement Trajectories to Neural Mechanisms.  1985 Short Course 2 Syllabus.  Paul S.G. Stein, Organizer.  Soc. for Neuroscience, Washington, pp. 67-80.

    7.  Levitan, I.B. and Kaczmarek, L.K.  (1991)  Neural networks and behavior, Ch. 16.  In: The Neuron, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, NY.

    8.  Harris-Warrick, R.M. and Flamm, R.E.  (1986)  Chemical modulation of a small central pattern generator circuit.  Trends Neurosci. 9: 432-437.

    9.  Zupanc, G.K.H.  (2004)  Neuronal control of motor output: swimming in toad tadpoles, Ch. 5.  In: Behavioral Neurobiology: An Integrative Approach, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, NY.  

    10.  Perkel, D.H.  (1988)  Logical neurons: the enigmatic legacy of Warren McCulloch. TINS 11: 9-12. -and-Kandel, E.R., Schwartz, J.H. and Jessell, T.M.  (1995)  Cognitive functions can now be simulated by artificial neural networks that employ parallel distributed processing, Ch. 19. In: Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior.  Appleton and Lange, Norwalk, CT, pp. 359-363.

    11.  Purves, D. and Lichtman, J.T.  (1985)  The development of behavior,  Ch. 14.  In: Principles of Neural Development.  Sinauer Assoc., New York, NY.

    12.  Ghez, C.  (1991)  Voluntary movment, Ch. 40.  In: Principles of Neural Science, 3rd Edition (E.R. Kandel, J.H. Schwartz, and T.M. Jessell, eds.) Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 609-625. -and- printouts of 2 websites: Mind over matter, and Dr. John Chapin's Lab.

MISCELLANEOUS ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR THOSE INTERESTED:

 


MOVIES

Zebrafish startle behavior (Fetcho lab link)

Zebrafish Mauthner cells and other reticulospinal neurons (Fetcho lab; 1.22 MB QuickTime file)

Calcium imaging in zebrafish CiD interneurons during escape (Fetcho lab link)

Clione swimming (2.66 MB QuickTime file)
Egg-rolling "fixed action pattern" in a greylag goose (1.79 MB GIF file)

Chick hatching (595  KB QuickTime file)


OTHER WEB SITES OF INTEREST

 

Journals
Brain Briefings

Journal of Neurophysiology
Journal of Neuroscience
Nature Neuroscience
Science

Neuroscience on Public Radio

The Infinite Mind

"Neurotechnology"

Monkeys think, moving artificial arm as own (New York Times, 2008)
Biomimetic Underwater Robot Program (B.U.R.P.)

Biomimetic Robots (New York Times, 2004)
Washington Post article on biomimetic robots
Facing a remote control future? (BBC News)
Thinking and typing (BBC News)
Communicating with thought power (BBC News)
Looking through cats' eyes (BBC News)

i-Limb Bionic Hand

Organizations
International Society for Neuroethology
Society for Neuroscience

People
Neuroethology
   Neuroethology ResearchersWarren S. McCullochWalter Pitts (1954)
Mauthner cells and startle behavior
   Robert Eaton
   Joseph Fetcho
   Steven Zottoli
Spinal Reflexes and Motor Patterns
   Sten Grillner
   Charles Sherrington
Clione swimming
    Yuri Arshavsky
   Richard Satterlie
Crustacean Stomatogastric (STG) system
   Stomatogastric Research Groups

   Hans-Georg Heinzel
   Paul Katz
   Eve Marder
   Allen Selverston

Simple vertebrate model systems (tadpole & lamprey)Konrad Lorenz (left) and Erich von Holst (right) at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen. (from Zupanc, Behavioral Neurobiology, 2003).
   Alan Roberts - Xenopus tadpole research

   Sten Grillner et al. - Lamprey research

   James Buchanan - Lamprey research
Artificial Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence
   Computation and the brain (on M.I.T. CogNet)

   Neural networks (on MIT  CogNet)

   Warren McCulloch (by Jerry Letvin)
   Walter Pitts (by Jerry Letvin)
   Terrence Sejnowski

   Alan Turing homepage (by Andrew Hodges)
Development of Behavior
   Anne Bekoff
   Fernando Nottebohm
   Peter Marler
   Gabriel Horn

   Elizabeth Gould
Cortical Control of Voluntary Movement
   John Chapin
   Apostolos Georgopoulos

   Miguel Nicolelis

   Andrew Schwartz
 

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean-Dominique Bauby.
 

Neurotechnology for Biomimetic Robots, edited by Joseph Ayers, Joel Davis and Alan Rudolph.
 

Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges.