Obstacle Avoidance Demonstrating Masking

Obstacle avoidance in the context of target orientation occurs in the Tectum in simple animals. The neuron representing the retinal location of each target fans out its set of output axons throughout the Tectum to all surrounding locations which intersect with neurons representing obstacle locations. The target central axon has the greatest activation while the peripheral axons have weaker activations. Because any obstacle blocks the downstream activation of the target axons the final orientation of the animal will be governed by the greatest valued non-blocked axon.

The activation of target and obstacle neurons most likely does not happen simultaneously so masking must be introduced. Masking uses neuro-modulation to keep the obstacle constraint active for whenever the target neurons are activated. This masking defines the pathway through the Tectum for the target activation.

Masking is a core concept in brain circuit design. More information at softstatemagic.com.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• brain
• brain circuit
• spiking neural network
• neuroscience
• computer simulation
• AI
• tectum
• masking