Leon N. Cooper - US grants

This project will continue and extend the P.I.'s path-breaking work in studying the learning mechanisms at work in the cerebral cortex of mammals. The learning algorithms now popular in neuroengineering are not powerful enough to explain these mechanisms; the P.I. has studied the reasons why, and is working to develop more powerful algorithms. He is working closely with neurobiologists to find new evidence for what kinds of mechanisms are actually used in the brain, at a very detailed level.

This proposal requests funds to support research to find principles of organization that can account for experimental data on the cellular level and on various higher levels. Specific objectives include: clarifying the dependence of learning on synaptic modification, elucidating the principles that govern synapse formation or modification, constructing a molecular model for synaptic modificaton, constructing network models that can compute, learn, associate, and reproduce such higher level cognitive acts as abstraction, language acquisition, and speech recognition. By testing critical theories, the principal investigator will attempt to obtain a better understanding of the basic biological mechanisms by which the cental nervous system learns and organizes itself and acquires its capacity for mental acts. The principal and coprincipal investigators are well funded and well versed in a wide variety of techniques and theoretical frameworks germane to the research proposed. They are well qualified to conduct the research. The interaction of theoreticians and experimentalists will allow the coupling of theory and experimentation, a major strength of this proposal. Support is recommended.

9319373 Cooper The goal of this work is to understand how the connections between nerve cells (call synapses) in the visual cortex of the brain change during maturation from newborn to adult. Dr. Cooper has developed a theory that during the critical period in development when the brain must receive visual input to develop properly, it is a change in the neuronal circuits with the brain that is critical for proper development rather than changes in the properties of the synapses, as has been proposed by others. The experiments that will be done by this team of investigators will test this theory by doing experiments on neurons in in vitro brain slices from rat visual cortex at different times during development and from rats raised in different visual environments. If this theory is proven to be true, the work outlined in this proposal will change significantly the way in which we view the developing brain.