
Brain Computation by Assemblies of Neurons - headalgorithm
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/08/2001893117
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seesawtron
Quite interesting. Maass has done some pioneering work on Liquid State
Machines and Echo state networks (LSTMs/RNNs).

In this paper they define a formal system intended to model the computations
underlying cognitive functions that is done via an assembly, a set of
excitatory neurons all belonging to the same brain area, and capable of near-
simultaneous firing.

The main assumption in their model that I do not agree with is that of random
synaptic wiring of the circuits. There is considerable research that argues
that synaptic connectivity is not random but specific in several ways [0,1].

[0] Sporns O. (2011). The non-random brain: efficiency, economy, and complex
dynamics. Front. Comput. Neurosci. 5:5 10.3389/fncom.2011.00005 [1]
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6469/eaay3134/tab...](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6469/eaay3134/tab-
figures-data)

