Current models of embryological development focus on intracellular processes such as gene expression and protein networks, rather than on the complex relationship between subcellular processes and the collective cellular organization these processes support. We have explored this collective behavior in the context of neocortical development, by modeling the expansion of a small number of progenitor cells into a laminated cortex with layer and cell type specific projections. The developmental process is steered by a formal language analogous to genomic instructions, and takes place in a physically realistic three-dimensional environment. A common genome inserted into individual cells control their individual behaviors, and thereby gives rise to collective developmental sequences in a biologically plausible manner. The simulation begins with a single progenitor cell containing the artificial genome. This progenitor then gives rise through a lineage of offspring to distinct populations of neuronal precursors that migrate to form the cortical laminae. The precursors differentiate by extending dendrites and axons, which reproduce the experimentally determined branching patterns of a number of different neuronal cell types observed in the cat visual cortex. This result is the first comprehensive demonstration of the principles of self-construction whereby the cortical architecture develops. In addition, our model makes several testable predictions concerning cell migration and branching mechanisms.

In recent years there have been an increasing number of research groups that have begun to develop multi-chip address-event systems. The communication protocol used to transmit signals between these systems’ components is based on the Address-Event Representation (AER). It is therefore important to have access to robust and reliable AER communication infrastructures for streamlining the systems’ development and prototyping stages. We propose an AER communication infrastructure that can be easily interfaced to workstations or laptops during a prototyping phase, and that can be embedded into compact and low-cost systems in the application phase. The infrastructure proposed uses a novel serial AER interface with flow-control, overcomes many of the drawbacks observed with previous solutions, and can achieve event rates of up to 78.125MHz for 32bit AEs.

A 5-layer neuromorphic vision processor whose components communicate spike events asychronously using the address-event- representation (AER) is demonstrated. The system includes a retina chip, two convolution chips, a 2D winner-take-all chip, a delay line chip, a learning classifier chip, and a set of PCBs for computer interfacing and address space remappings. The components use a mixture of analog and digital computation and will learn to classify trajectories of a moving object. A complete experimental setup and measurements results are shown.

Ada is an entertainment exhibit that is able to interact with many people simultaneously, using a language of light and sound. "She " received 553,700 visitors over 5 months during the Swiss Expo.02 in 2002. In this paper we present the broad motivations, design and technologies behind Ada, and a first overview of the outcomes of the exhibit.

Despite immense progress in neuroscience, we remain restricted in our ability to construct autonomous behaving robots that match the competence of even simple animals. The barriers to the realisation of this goal include: the lack of knowledge of system integration issues, engineering limitations and organisational constraints common to many research laboratories. In this paper we describe our approach to addressing these issues by constructing an artificial organism within the framework of the Ada project - a large-scale public exhibit for the Swiss Expo.02 national exhibition.