BioSpaun: A large-scale behaving brain model with complex neurons
This work addresses the problem of bridging molecular and behavioral scales in neuroscience, offering a novel tool for researchers, though it is incremental as an extension of the Spaun model.
The authors tackled the challenge of linking molecular-level interventions to high-level behavior in brain models by developing BioSpaun, a large-scale functional brain model with detailed, conductance-based compartmental neurons. They demonstrated that including these neurons does not reduce performance on tasks like digit recognition and serial working memory, and showed behavioral changes from applying a sodium channel blocking drug (TTX).
We describe a large-scale functional brain model that includes detailed, conductance-based, compartmental models of individual neurons. We call the model BioSpaun, to indicate the increased biological plausibility of these neurons, and because it is a direct extension of the Spaun model \cite{Eliasmith2012b}. We demonstrate that including these detailed compartmental models does not adversely affect performance across a variety of tasks, including digit recognition, serial working memory, and counting. We then explore the effects of applying TTX, a sodium channel blocking drug, to the model. We characterize the behavioral changes that result from this molecular level intervention. We believe this is the first demonstration of a large-scale brain model that clearly links low-level molecular interventions and high-level behavior.