Subject: MiCRAM Website Moved From: Harry Erwin <harry.erwin@xxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 09:03:31 +0100 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>The MiCRAM website has been rehosted at <http://crowan-scat.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/mediawiki/index.php>. This site documents the auditory research that Adrian Rees and Harry Erwin are performing collaboratively using EPSRC funding (starting 1 July 2006) as a interdisciplinary project between the University of Newcastle upon Tyne School of Neurology, Neurobiology and Psychiatry and the University of Sunderland School of Computing. The overall goal is to study sound processing in the mammalian brain and to build a computational model which can be tested on a biomimetic robot artefact to refine the neuroscience models. The robotic work is being led by Professor Stefan Wermter at the University of Sunderland. This research involves the collaborative development of a biologically plausible model of auditory processing at the level of the inferior colliculus. This approach potentially clarifies the roles of the multiple spectral and temporal representations that are present at the level of the inferior colliculus and investigate how representations of sounds interact with auditory processing at that level to focus attention and select sound sources for deeper analysis. A key feature of our approach is to maximise the use of existing data from our own and other laboratories. The inferior colliculus has been extensively studied in many species including several non-specialised mammals and echolocating bats. Much of this vast body of data exists in isolation and has not been formally synthesised. This is a severe hindrance, both to our understanding of the colliculus, and our ability to incorporate it into neural models. The goal of building a model with specific outcomes and measurable performance will provide a formal framework to underpin the data synthesis we propose. Our approach of mining existing data will also contribute to Government's objective in the 3Rs (Replacement, Refinement and Reduction) of reducing the number of animals used in experiments. Dr. Reesís knowledge of the inferior colliculus and extensive connections with other researchers in the field will be key to this approach. Where specific information required for the model is not available we will have the capability to address these questions experimentally. The model will in turn have predictive power that will also guide future experiments in the quest for emergent features. -- Harry Erwin, PhD, Senior Lecturer of Computing, University of Sunderland. Computational neuroethologist: http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/mediawiki/index.php