Noise-Tolerant Neural Networks Controlling Adaptive Behavior in Autonomous Agents

摘要

The lab has grown significantly in the past year. Two postdoctoral fellowsmentioned in the previous Progress Report are now in house and fully up to speed. One is working on the physiological aspects of the project (Specific Aim 2); the other is working on the modeling (Specific Aim 3). I am also pleased to report that I now have a graduate student. He is working exclusively on the behavioral analysis of nematode chemotaxis. I now have, therefore, implemented my original plan for the lab: to investigate chemotaxis at the behavioral, physiological, and theoretical levels simultaneously and interactively. I have also hired a half-time technician to help with the physiology. As a result of this increase in personnel and several breakthroughs they have made, substantial progress has been achieved on 4 of the 5 Specific Aims of this project. These are discussed in turn below.