cos-neuro

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference

dgivens8 — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:46:41 +0000

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference dgivens8 Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

Researchers at Georgia Tech have taken a critical step forward in creating efficient, useful and brain-like artificial intelligence (AI). The key? A new algorithm that results in neural networks with internal structure more like the human brain.

The study, “TopoNets: High-Performing Vision and Language Models With Brain-Like Topography,” was awarded a spotlight at this year’s International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), a distinction given to only 2 percent of papers. The research was led by graduate student Mayukh Deb alongside School of Psychology Assistant Professor Apurva Ratan Murty.

Thirty-two of Tech’s computing, engineering, and science faculty represented the Institute at ICLR 2025, which is globally renowned for sharing cutting-edge research.

“We started with this idea because we saw that AI models are unstructured, while brains are exquisitely organized,” says first-author Deb. “Our models with internal structure showed more than a 20 percent boost in efficiency with almost no performance losses. And this is out-of-the-box — it’s broadly applicable to other models with no extra fine-tuning needed.”

For Murty, the research also underscores the importance of a rapidly growing field of research at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. “There's a major explosion in understanding intelligence right now,” he says. “The neuro-AI approach is exciting because it helps emulate human intelligence in machines, making AI more interpretable.”

“In addition to advancing AI, this type of research also benefits neuroscience because it informs a fundamental question: Why is our brain organized the way it is?,” Deb adds. “Making AI more interpretable helps everyone.”

Brain-inspired blueprints

In the brain, neurons form topographic maps: neurons used for comparable tasks are closer together. The researchers applied this concept to AI by organizing how internal components (like artificial neurons) connect and process information.

This type of organization has been tried in the past but has been challenging, Murty says. “Historically, rules constraining how the AI could structure itself often resulted in lower-performing models. We realized that for this type of biophysical constraint, you simply can’t map everything — you need an algorithmic solution.”

“Our key insight was an algorithmic trick that gives the same structure as brains without enforcing things that models don't respond well to,” he adds. “That breakthrough was what Mayukh (Deb) worked on.”

The algorithm, called TopoLoss, uses a loss function to encourage brain-like organization in artificial neural networks, and it is compatible with many AI systems capable of understanding language and images.

“The resulting training method, TopoNets, is very flexible and broadly applicable,” Murty says. “You can apply it to contemporary models very easily, which is a critical advancement when compared to previous methods.”

Neuro-AI innovations

Murty and Deb plan to continue refining and designing brain-inspired AI systems. “All parts of the brain have some organization — we want to expand into other domains,” Deb says. “On the neuroscience side of things, we want to discover new kinds of organization in brains using these topographic systems.”

Deb also cites possibilities in robotics, especially in situations like space exploration where resources are limited. “Imagine running a model inside a robot with limited power,” he says. “Structured models can help us achieve 80 percent of performance with just 20 percent of energy consumption, saving valuable energy and space. This is still experimental, but it's the direction we are interested in exploring.”

“This success highlights the potential of a new approach, designing systems that benefit both neuroscience and AI — and beyond,” Murty adds. “We can learn so much from the human brain, and this project shows that brain-inspired systems can help current AI be better. We hope our work stimulates this conversation.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Summary

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Dateline

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:00

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Written by Selena Langner

Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston

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Source updated

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

The Real Mockingbirds

admin — Tue, 20 May 2025 14:43:41 +0000

The Real Mockingbirds admin Tue, 05/20/2025 - 10:43

Half a century ago, Marvel Comics introduced the superpower-wielding scientist Bobbi Morse — aka Mockingbird — one of several famous superheroes imagined to hold a degree from Georgia Tech.

Today, just over seven decades since women first enrolled at the Institute, 56% of students earning degrees in the College of Sciences are female. As we celebrate Women's History Month and look to the future of our field, meet seven real-life superheroines of life science — and science fiction — from across the Institute.

Tap here to read this story in the Georgia Tech newsroom.

Summary sentence

As we celebrate Women's History Month and look to the future of our field, meet seven of Georgia Tech's real-life superheroines of life science — and science fiction.

Summary

Half a century ago, Marvel Comics introduced the superpower-wielding scientist Bobbi Morse — aka Mockingbird — one of several famous superheroes imagined to hold a degree from Georgia Tech. Today, 56% of students earning degrees in the College of Sciences are female. As we celebrate Women's History Month and look to the future of our field, meet seven real-life superheroines of life science — and science fiction — from across the Institute.

Dateline

Wed, 03/29/2023 - 12:00

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Wed, 03/29/2023 - 15:41

Fulbright U.S. Student Awards Announced for 2024-2025

dgivens8 — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 15:26:41 +0000

Fulbright U.S. Student Awards Announced for 2024-2025 dgivens8 Mon, 06/17/2024 - 11:26

The Georgia Institute of Technology is pleased to announce that five students and alumni have received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to study/conduct research in the fields of international business and neuroscience and serve as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Mongolia and Taiwan for the 2024-2025 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

ANISHA KANUKOLANU, B.S. NEUROSCIENCE, 2023, Research at the Technische Universität, Berlin, Berlin Germany. Anisha will conduct research under the guidance of Dr. Sein Jeung in the Berlin Mobile Brain-Body Imaging Lab. Anisha states, “I am very passionate about cultural competency and creating globally inclusive research. I want to conduct research in Germany to learn more about the highly multicultural academic landscape in neuroscience research.”

GINA PIAZZA, B.S. ECONOMICS & BS APPLIED LANGUAGES & INTERCULTURAL STUDIES, 2021, Mexico Binational Business Program. This unique program provides recipients with a ten-month internship in a Mexican or multinational company in Mexico City. Gina is excited about this opportunity to work internationally and develop valuable resources for her future career in global development. Gina states, “This experience will broaden my perspective on the process of development, and immersion in Mexican culture will help me to understand diverse viewpoints. As a result, I anticipate completing the grant period prepared to work with various stakeholders in a global development career.”

TOM (MINSEOK) LEE, B.S. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 2024, English Teaching Assistant, Mongolia. While completing an internship at the Department of State, Tom was able to help out at the Mongolia Desk. Tom explains, “I chose the English Teaching Assistant program in Mongolia because I wanted to continue learning about Mongolia and its language and culture.”

EMILY YAN, B.S. BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, 2024, English Teaching Assistant, Taiwan. Emily is excited to teach young students from another culture and looks forward to fostering empathetic listening skills. With the ultimate goal of attending medical school, Emily explains, “Teaching may seem distant from the field of medicine, but teaching plays a large part in patient care. I aspire to develop into a healthcare professional capable of comprehending and addressing the diverse needs of those under my care.”

CLAIRE LIN, B.S. INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING, 2023, English Teaching Assistant, Taiwan. One of Claire’s life goals is to bring accessibility to underserved areas around the globe. She explains, “I have yearned to connect with communities through cultural immersion and direct communication to address the root causes of disparities in healthcare and education.”

More than 2,000 Fulbright U.S. Students—recent college graduates, graduate students, and early career professionals from all backgrounds—pursue graduate study, conduct research, or teach English in schools abroad each year.

Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided over 400,000 talented and accomplished students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals of all backgrounds with the opportunity to study, teach, and conduct research abroad. Fulbrighters exchange ideas, build people-to-people connections, and work to address complex global challenges.

Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which has operated in over 160 countries worldwide. In the United States, the Institute of International Education implements the Fulbright U.S. Student and U.S. Scholar Programs on behalf of the U.S. Department of State. For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit https://fulbrightprogram.org.

Georgia Tech’s Prestigious Fellowships Advisor Dr. Karen Mura sees the Fulbright program as an opportunity for recipients to connect with the world as they advance their personal goals and growth. "The Fulbright program is a tremendous opportunity for our students to broaden their horizons and gain valuable experience in their fields of study," she said. "We are incredibly proud of our five recipients for their hard work and dedication, and we look forward to seeing how they will contribute to their host communities while representing Georgia Tech and the United States."

The Office of Undergraduate Education is proud of these talented students and wishes them the best of luck as they embark on their Fulbright journeys.

Students interested in Fulbright, or any nationally or internationally competitive award, can follow up by contacting Shannon Dobranski at shannon.dobranski@gatech.edu.

Pre-Graduate and Pre-Professional Advising is part of Academic Success and Advising (ASA) and the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE).

Summary sentence

College of Sciences graduate Anisha Kanukolanu is among the Georgia Tech students and alumni who have received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to study/conduct research.

Summary

College of Sciences graduate Anisha Kanukolanu is among the Georgia Tech students and alumni who have received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to study/conduct research.

Dateline

Mon, 06/10/2024 - 12:00

Contact

by Karen Mura, Office of Undergraduate Education

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B.S. Neuroscience

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675110

Source updated

Mon, 06/17/2024 - 11:25

Asthma's New Treatment Frontier

admin — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 15:45:41 +0000

Asthma's New Treatment Frontier admin Mon, 06/10/2024 - 11:45

Asthma impacts more than 40 million Americans, and 10% of the world’s population. However, current anti-inflammatory treatments only partially control the disease’s symptoms. Now, Liang Han, an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, has been awarded a $2.47M grant by the National Institute of Health to study the role our nervous system plays in asthma — and the potential for new treatments. The grant will fund five years of research, with work beginning this spring.

“Asthma is typically considered an allergic inflammatory disease,” Han says, “and so the majority of research has previously focused on immune responses. But there is emerging evidence that the nervous system plays a critical role in the disease.”

Han highlights that our lungs are full of sensory nerves, which help monitor their internal state, and play an important role in regulating our breathing patterns and respiratory system. Vagal sensory neurons help send information from the lungs to the brain. Recent data collected by Yanyan Xing, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Han lab and now a scientist at Empress Therapeutics, suggested that blocking a group of vagal sensory neurons stopped the development of asthma symptoms in mice.

“Since these sensory neurons are responsible for responses like coughing, bronchoconstriction, and mucus secretion, all of which are asthma symptoms, we want to investigate whether blocking these neurons can help inhibit asthma in humans,” Han says. “If so, this might prove a promising treatment avenue for asthma.”

The nervous system connection

In her lab at Georgia Tech, Han’s research team investigates the role the nervous system plays in creating and behavioral responses, and how that contributes to chronic diseases. “We want to understand how the nervous system receives, transmits, and interprets various stimuli to induce physiological and behavioral responses,” she explains.

This year, Han also received a $550k grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the neural circuit controlling itch sensation. The research has the potential to uncover new treatments for sensory conditions like chronic itch.

Subtitle

Liang Han awarded $2.47M NIH Grant to Study Nervous System's Role in Asthma

Summary sentence

Han will investigate whether blocking specific neurons can help inhibit asthma — which may provide a new avenue for developing treatments.

Summary

Asthma impacts more than 10% of the world’s population, but current anti-inflammatory treatments only partially control the disease. Now, with a $2.47M grant, Liang Han is exploring the role our nervous systems play, potentially leading to new treatments.

Dateline

Tue, 05/21/2024 - 12:00

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Written by Selena Langner

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Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics

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Research

Mercury ID

674829

Source updated

Mon, 06/10/2024 - 11:44

Georgia Tech to Offer Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, New Minor

admin — Thu, 02 May 2024 20:21:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Offer Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, New Minor admin Thu, 05/02/2024 - 16:21

The University System of Georgia Board of Regents has approved a new Neuroscience and Neurotechnology Ph.D. Program at Georgia Tech.

The interdisciplinary degree is a joint effort across the Colleges of Sciences, Computing, and Engineering. The program expects to enroll its first graduate students in Fall 2025, pending approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

The Institute Curriculum Committee has also approved a new Minor in Neuroscience, set to become available in the Georgia Tech 2024-2025 Catalog.

B.S. in Neuroscience

The Ph.D. and Minor offerings build on the recently launched Neuro Next Initiative in Research, and the established Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience, respectively.

Approved by the Board of Regents in 2017, the interdisciplinary B.S. in Neuroscience degree in the College of Sciences enrolled more than 400 undergraduate students in 2022, and has been the fastest growing undergraduate major at Georgia Tech.

The B.S. in Neuroscience is also key to a strong ecosystem of undergraduate neuroscience education across the state, which includes peer programs at Mercer University, Augusta University, Georgia State University, Agnes Scott College, and Emory University.

Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology

The new doctoral degree will provide a path for the rapidly growing pipeline of in-state neuroscience undergraduate students and young alumni — while also welcoming a wider slate of graduate researchers to campus.

The Ph.D. Program’s mission is focused on educating students to advance the field of neuroscience through an interdisciplinary approach, with scientists and engineers of different backgrounds — ultimately integrating neuroscience research and technological development to study all levels of nervous system function.

Biological Sciences Professor Lewis A. Wheaton, who chaired the Ph.D. Program Planning Committee, shares that a cohort model will fuse “experimental and quantitative skill development, creating opportunities for students to work in science and engineering labs to promote collaborations, while also fostering a program and community that’s unique to the state and against national peer offerings.”

Expanding innovation — and impact

Wheaton explains that the new Ph.D. aims to equip graduates for a wide range of employment opportunities and growing specializations, including computational neuroscience, neurorehabilitation, cultural and social neuroscience, neuroimaging, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, and neurolinguistics.

The new degree will also help meet the country’s growing demand for a neuro-centric workforce. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth for medical scientists (including neuroscientists) tracked around 13% between 2012 and 2022, faster than the average for all tracked occupations.

Wheaton adds that the program will equip neuroscientists to conduct research that can significantly improve lives.

Seeking students

The Planning Committee anticipates a tentative February 1, 2025 application deadline for Fall 2025 enrollments — and encourages students with the following interests to learn more and apply in the coming school year:

Developing deeper quantitative, computing and/or engineering skills to make scientific discoveries that support innovations in neuroscience
A clear, comprehensive understanding of the nervous system at all scales from molecular to systems
Understanding how to use and innovate new tools and approaches to investigate the nervous system at all levels
Becoming uniquely qualified to translate knowledge across neuroscience and related disciplines to create new knowledge in their professional pursuits

Director search

The participating Colleges will soon conduct a search for a program director, engaging a tenured member of the Georgia Tech faculty to serve as the new program’s administrator. A graduate program committee composed of five faculty members and mentors across the Colleges of Sciences, Computing, and Engineering, will also be created.

During their April 2024 meeting, Regents also announced budget approvals and tuition changes for Georgia's 26 member institutions.

The Ph.D. Program Planning Committee included the following faculty:

Lewis Wheaton (Committee Chair, Biological Sciences)
Constantine Dovrolis (Computer Science)
Christopher Rozell (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Eric Schumacher (Psychology)
Garrett Stanley (Biomedical Engineering)
David Collard (College of Sciences Office of the Dean)

Subtitle

The new interdisciplinary Ph.D. is expected to enroll its first graduate students in Fall 2025. Sciences will also offer a new Minor in Neuroscience, beginning Fall 2024.

Summary sentence

The new interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology is expected to enroll its first graduate students in Fall 2025. Sciences will also offer a new Minor in Neuroscience, beginning Fall 2024.

Summary

The new Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology is expected to enroll its first graduate students in Fall 2025. The interdisciplinary degree is a joint effort with the Colleges of Sciences, Computing, and Engineering. Sciences will also offer a new Minor in Neuroscience, beginning Fall 2024.

Dateline

Thu, 05/02/2024 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

Contact

Programs:

Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology
Contact Professor Lewis Wheaton, Planning Committee Chair
Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience
Minor in Neuroscience
Georgia Tech Neuro and Neuro Next

Press Contact:
Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications
College of Sciences at Georgia Tech

Neuro Next Initiative:

Sarah Peterson
Program Manager
GT Neuro

Audra Davidson
Research Communications Program Manager
Neuro Next Initiative at Georgia Tech

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Institute and Campus

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Mercury ID

674493

Source updated

Thu, 05/02/2024 - 16:20

Neurotech Moonshot: Georgia Tech Researcher Shares Impact of BRAIN Initiative in Congressional Briefing

admin — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 19:33:41 +0000

Neurotech Moonshot: Georgia Tech Researcher Shares Impact of BRAIN Initiative in Congressional Briefing admin Wed, 04/24/2024 - 15:33

For the past 10 years, the National Institutes of Health have led an unprecedented effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain. The aptly named BRAIN (Brain Research Through Advancing Neurotechnologies) Initiative has led to remarkable technological advancements, insights into the structure and function of the brain, and budding therapies.

Recently, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Professor Chris Rozell traveled to Washington, D.C. to share the impact of his BRAIN Initiative research with U.S. Congressional offices — and offer insights on how critical this program is to society. The briefing took on a particular urgency because BRAIN Initiative funding was cut over 40% this year, and future funding appears to be in jeopardy in the current federal budget climate.

“The millions of patients suffering with intractable neurologic disorders and mental illness deserve a moonshot to develop new solutions for their conditions,” said Rozell, who also holds the Julian T. Hightower Chair in ECE and serves on the executive committee for Georgia Tech’s Neuro Next Initiative. “You can't get to the moon with a paper plane, and you can’t get there without a map. The BRAIN Initiative is a vital program because it's one of the few places that brings together interdisciplinary teams that include the scientists who have been building maps of brain circuits and the engineers who have been building rockets to understand and intervene with those circuits.

“I'm proud to have had the chance to represent not only our own research, but the incredible community here at Georgia Tech and around the country working to understand many different aspects of the brain, developing new neurotechnologies, and advancing therapies for neurologic disorders.”

Interdisciplinary impacts

“The main message we presented to Congress is that the interdisciplinary combination of rigorous science and technical innovation can have enormous societal impact over the next few decades,” said Rozell.

A stark example of that impact was published in Nature this past fall. In this research, Rozell and his collaborators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Emory University School of Medicine identified the first known biomarker of disease recovery with deep brain stimulation in treatment-resistant depression.

“The fact that an engineer can advance clinical therapies is a testament to the new era we're in,” says Rozell, “where disciplinary boundaries are fading, and technological innovation accelerates our scientific and translational breakthroughs.”

This research served as a focal point of the congressional briefing, where Rozell presented with BRAIN Initiative Director John J. Ngai, clinical collaborators, and a family whose lives have been transformed by this work.

“Events like last week are dream come true,” shared Jon Nelson, who was treated with deep brain stimulation as part of the study and presented with Rozell in D.C. After living through 10 years of debilitating, treatment-resistant depression, Nelson says “remission of depression still doesn't feel real. It's been a year and a half, and I still am in awe every single day.

“The fact that I have come out of this study and found that the disease is purely an electrical deficiency in my brain has fueled me to completely pulverize the stigma of mental illness,” Nelson explained. “When you have an opportunity to go speak to Congress — that’s about as great of a platform as you can get for that. Being able to put a face to what the BRAIN Initiative funding can do for people was just amazing.”

When meeting with local representatives, Rozell also relayed his work as co-executive leader of the Neuro Next Initiative, a budding Interdisciplinary Research Institute at Georgia Tech.

“I was thrilled to highlight that Georgia Tech is leading the charge with the Neuro Next Initiative, which will evolve into a full Interdisciplinary Research Institute in 2025,” said Rozell. “Georgia Tech has the ingredients to become a leading center for modern technology-driven interdisciplinary brain research and workforce development.

“This visit was a reminder to me that research funding is not guaranteed and it’s important to keep communicating the critical value that research plays in advancing our understanding, training our workforce, fueling our economy, and ultimately making a better tomorrow for society.”

Summary sentence

Chris Rozell traveled to Washington, D.C. to share the impacts of the past decade of brain research funded by the NIH BRAIN Initiative with Congress — and share with local representatives how Georgia Tech is playing a key role in leading the charge.

Summary

Georgia Tech Professor Chris Rozell recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to present his groundbreaking research on treatment-resistant depression to Congress. There, Rozell shared insights on the impact of 10 years of the NIH BRAIN Initiative — and share with local representatives how Georgia Tech is playing a key role in leading the charge.

Dateline

Wed, 04/24/2024 - 12:00

audra.davidson@research.gatech.edu

Contact

Audra Davidson
Research Communications Program Manager
Neuro Next Initiative

Keywords

go-neuro

BRAIN initiative

go-researchnews

cos-research

cos-neuro

News room topics

Health and Medicine

Categories

Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics

Congressional Testimony

Life Sciences and Biology

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Mercury ID

674366

Source updated

Wed, 04/24/2024 - 15:31

Neuroscience Study Taps Into Brain Network Patterns to Understand Deep Focus, Attention

admin — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 01:03:41 +0000

Neuroscience Study Taps Into Brain Network Patterns to Understand Deep Focus, Attention admin Wed, 04/10/2024 - 21:03

From completing puzzles and playing music, to reading and exercising, growing up Dolly Seeburger loved activities that demanded her full attention. “It was in those times that I felt most content, like I was in the zone,” she remembers. “Hours would pass, but it would feel like minutes.”

While this deep focus state is essential to highly effective work, it’s still not fully understood. Now, a new study led by Seeburger, a graduate student in the School of Psychology, alongside her advisor, Eric Schumacher, a professor in the School of Psychology is unearthing the mechanisms behind it.

The interdisciplinary Georgia Tech team also includes Nan Xu, Sam Larson and Shella Keilholz (Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering), alongside Marcus Ma (College of Computing), and Christine Godwin (School of Psychology).

The researchers’ study, “Time-varying functional connectivity predicts fluctuations in sustained attention in a serial tapping task,” was published in Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience earlier this year, and it investigates brain activity via fMRI during periods of deep focus and less-focused work.

The work is the first to investigate low-frequency fluctuations between different networks in the brain during focus, and could act as a springboard to study more complex behaviors and focus states.

“Your brain is dynamic! Nothing is just on or off,” Seeburger explains. “This is the phenomenon we wanted to study. How does one get into the zone? Why is it that some people can sustain their attention better than others? Is this something that can be trained? If so, can we help people get better at it?”

The dynamic brain

The team’s work is also the first to study the relationship between fluctuations in attention and the brain network patterns within these low-frequency 20-second cycles. “For quite a while, the studies on neural oscillations focused on faster temporal frequencies, and the appreciation of these very low-frequency oscillations is relatively new,” Seeburger says. “But, these low-frequency fluctuations may play a key role in regulating higher cognition such as sustained attention.”

“One of the things we've discovered in previous research is that there's a natural fluctuation in activity in certain brain networks. When a subject is not doing a specific task while in the MRI scanner, we see that fluctuation happen roughly every 20 seconds,” adds co-author Schumacher, explaining that the team was interested in the pattern because it is quasi-periodic, meaning that it doesn’t repeat exactly every 20 seconds, and it varies between different trials and subjects.

By studying these quasi-periodic cycles, the team hoped to measure the relationship between the brain fluctuation in these networks and the behavioral fluctuation associated with changes in attention.

Your attention needed

To measure attention, participants tapped along to a metronome while in an fMRI scanner. The team could measure how “in the zone” participants were by measuring how much variability was in each participant’s taps — more variability suggested the participant was less focused, while precise tapping suggested the participant was “in the zone.”

The researchers found that when a subject’s focus level changed, different regions of the brain synchronized and desychronized, in particular the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) and default mode network (DMN), The FPCN is engaged when a person is trying to stay on task, whereas the DMN is correlated with internally-oriented thoughts (which a participant might be having when less focused). “When one is out-of-the-zone, these two networks synchronize, and are in phase in the low frequency,” Seeburger explains. “When one is in the zone, these networks desynchronize.”

The results suggest that the 20-second patterns could help predict if a person is sustaining their attention or not, and could provide key insight for researchers developing tools and techniques that help us deeply focus.

The big picture

While the direct relationship between behavior and brain activity is still unknown, these 20-second patterns in brain fluctuation are seen universally, and across species. “If you put someone in a scanner and their mind is wandering, you find these fluctuations. You can find these quasi-period patterns in rodents. You can find it in primates,” Schumacher says. “There's something fundamental about this brain network activity.”

“I think it answers a really fundamental question about the relationship between behavior and brain activity,” he adds. “Understanding how these brain networks work together and impact behavior could lead to new therapies to help people organize their brain networks in the most efficient way.”

And while this simple task might not investigate complex behaviors, the study could act as a springboard to move into more complicated behaviors and focus states. “Next, I would like to study sustained attention in a more naturalistic way,” Seeburger says. “I hope that we can further the understanding of attention and help people get a better handle on their ability to control, sustain, and increase it.”

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-024-01156-1

Summary sentence

A team of Georgia Tech researchers is the first to study the relationship between fluctuations in attention and the brain network patterns within low-frequency 20-second cycles.

Summary

A team of Georgia Tech researchers is the first to study the relationship between fluctuations in attention and the brain network patterns within low-frequency 20-second cycles. They found that synchronized and desynchronized activity in different brain networks across 20-second cycles corresponds to small shifts in attention levels. The research may have applications for therapeutic treatments and could be a springboard for future innovation.

Dateline

Tue, 04/09/2024 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

Contact

Written by Selena Langner

Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston

Associated importer

Keywords

cos-neuro

cos-research

go-researchnews

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Science and Technology

Categories

Research

Student Research

Mercury ID

674046

Source updated

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 21:03

Researchers Reveal Roadmap for AI Innovation in Brain and Language Learning

admin — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 16:13:41 +0000

Researchers Reveal Roadmap for AI Innovation in Brain and Language Learning admin Tue, 03/19/2024 - 12:13

One of the hallmarks of humanity is language, but now, powerful new artificial intelligence tools also compose poetry, write songs, and have extensive conversations with human users. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are widely available at the tap of a button — but just how smart are these AIs?

A new multidisciplinary research effort co-led by Anna (Anya) Ivanova, assistant professor in the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech, alongside Kyle Mahowald, an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, is working to uncover just that.

Their results could lead to innovative AIs that are more similar to the human brain than ever before — and also help neuroscientists and psychologists who are unearthing the secrets of our own minds.

The study, “Dissociating Language and Thought in Large Language Models,” is published this week in the scientific journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The work is already making waves in the scientific community: an earlier preprint of the paper, released in January 2023, has already been cited more than 150 times by fellow researchers. The research team has continued to refine the research for this final journal publication.

“ChatGPT became available while we were finalizing the preprint,” Ivanova explains. “Over the past year, we've had an opportunity to update our arguments in light of this newer generation of models, now including ChatGPT.”

Form versus function

The study focuses on large language models (LLMs), which include AIs like ChatGPT. LLMs are text prediction models, and create writing by predicting which word comes next in a sentence — just like how a cell phone or email service like Gmail might suggest what next word you might want to write. However, while this type of language learning is extremely effective at creating coherent sentences, that doesn’t necessarily signify intelligence.

Ivanova’s team argues that formal competence — creating a well-structured, grammatically correct sentence — should be differentiated from functional competence — answering the right question, communicating the correct information, or appropriately communicating. They also found that while LLMs trained on text prediction are often very good at formal skills, they still struggle with functional skills.

“We humans have the tendency to conflate language and thought,” Ivanova says. “I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind as we're trying to figure out what these models are capable of, because using that ability to be good at language, to be good at formal competence, leads many people to assume that AIs are also good at thinking — even when that's not the case.

It's a heuristic that we developed when interacting with other humans over thousands of years of evolution, but now in some respects, that heuristic is broken,” Ivanova explains.

The distinction between formal and functional competence is also vital in rigorously testing an AI’s capabilities, Ivanova adds. Evaluations often don’t distinguish formal and functional competence, making it difficult to assess what factors are determining a model’s success or failure. The need to develop distinct tests is one of the team’s more widely accepted findings, and one that some researchers in the field have already begun to implement.

Creating a modular system

While the human tendency to conflate functional and formal competence may have hindered understanding of LLMs in the past, our human brains could also be the key to unlocking more powerful AIs.

Leveraging the tools of cognitive neuroscience while a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Ivanova and her team studied brain activity in neurotypical individuals via fMRI, and used behavioral assessments of individuals with brain damage to test the causal role of brain regions in language and cognition — both conducting new research and drawing on previous studies. The team’s results showed that human brains use different regions for functional and formal competence, further supporting this distinction in AIs.

“Our research shows that in the brain, there is a language processing module and separate modules for reasoning,” Ivanova says. This modularity could also serve as a blueprint for how to develop future AIs.

“Building on insights from human brains — where the language processing system is sharply distinct from the systems that support our ability to think — we argue that the language-thought distinction is conceptually important for thinking about, evaluating, and improving large language models, especially given recent efforts to imbue these models with human-like intelligence,” says Ivanova’s former advisor and study co-author Evelina Fedorenko, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Developing AIs in the pattern of the human brain could help create more powerful systems — while also helping them dovetail more naturally with human users. “Generally, differences in a mechanism’s internal structure affect behavior,” Ivanova says. “Building a system that has a broad macroscopic organization similar to that of the human brain could help ensure that it might be more aligned with humans down the road.”

In the rapidly developing world of AI, these systems are ripe for experimentation. After the team’s preprint was published, OpenAI announced their intention to add plug-ins to their GPT models.

“That plug-in system is actually very similar to what we suggest,” Ivanova adds. “It takes a modularity approach where the language model can be an interface to another specialized module within a system.”

While the OpenAI plug-in system will include features like booking flights and ordering food, rather than cognitively inspired features, it demonstrates that “the approach has a lot of potential,” Ivanova says.

The future of AI — and what it can tell us about ourselves

While our own brains might be the key to unlocking better, more powerful AIs, these AIs might also help us better understand ourselves. “When researchers try to study the brain and cognition, it's often useful to have some smaller system where you can actually go in and poke around and see what's going on before you get to the immense complexity,” Ivanova explains.

However, since human language is unique, model or animal systems are more difficult to relate. That's where LLMs come in.

“There are lots of surprising similarities between how one would approach the study of the brain and the study of an artificial neural network” like a large language model, she adds. “They are both information processing systems that have biological or artificial neurons to perform computations.”

In many ways, the human brain is still a black box, but openly available AIs offer a unique opportunity to see the synthetic system's inner workings and modify variables, and explore these corresponding systems like never before.

“It's a really wonderful model that we have a lot of control over,” Ivanova says. “Neural networks — they are amazing.”

Along with Anna (Anya) Ivanova, Kyle Mahowald, and Evelina Fedorenko, the research team also includes Idan Blank (University of California, Los Angeles), as well as Nancy Kanwisher and Joshua Tenenbaum (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.01.011

Researcher Acknowledgements

For helpful conversations, we thank Jacob Andreas, Alex Warstadt, Dan Roberts, Kanishka Misra, students in the 2023 UT Austin Linguistics 393 seminar, the attendees of the Harvard LangCog journal club, the attendees of the UT Austin Department of Linguistics SynSem seminar, Gary Lupyan, John Krakauer, members of the Intel Deep Learning group, Yejin Choi and her group members, Allyson Ettinger, Nathan Schneider and his group members, the UT NLL Group, attendees of the KUIS AI Talk Series at Koç University in Istanbul, Tom McCoy, attendees of the NYU Philosophy of Deep Learning conference and his group members, Sydney Levine, organizers and attendees of the ILFC seminar, and others who have engaged with our ideas. We also thank Aalok Sathe for help with document formatting and references.

Funding sources

Anna (Anya) Ivanova was supported by funds from the Quest Initiative for Intelligence. Kyle Mahowald acknowledges funding from NSF Grant 2104995. Evelina Fedorenko was supported by NIH awards R01-DC016607, R01-DC016950, and U01-NS121471 and by research funds from the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the Simons Foundation through the Simons Center for the Social Brain.

Subtitle

A new study highlights how human neuroscience is paving the way for AI innovation — and what AI can teach us about ourselves.

Summary sentence

A new study co-led by Anna (Anya) Ivanova highlights how human neuroscience is paving the way for AI innovation — and what AI can teach us about ourselves.

Summary

A new study co-led by School of Psychology's Anna (Anya) Ivanova uncovers the relationship between language and thought in artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT, leveraging cognitive neuroscience research on the human brain. The results are a roadmap to developing new AIs — and to better understanding how we think and communicate.

Dateline

Tue, 03/19/2024 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

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Georgia Tech Partners on $15M NSF Grant to Explore Muscle Dynamics

admin — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 20:26:50 +0000

Georgia Tech Partners on $15M NSF Grant to Explore Muscle Dynamics admin Thu, 03/07/2024 - 15:26

This press release is shared jointly with the UC Irvine newsroom.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $15 million to an interdisciplinary team spanning 21 institutions across the country.

The six-year funding will support the Integrative Movement Sciences Institute (IMSI), an innovative group conducting groundbreaking research in the mechanics of muscle control during agile movements in changing environments.

NSF IMSI includes several key Georgia Tech researchers:

Co-PI Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor in the School of Physics and School of Biological Sciences
Lena Ting, professor and McCamish Foundation Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Engineering and co-director of the Neural Engineering Center
Greg Sawicki, associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Biological Sciences.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first US-based integrative center on the fundamental biology of muscle and movement that aims to bridge from the molecule to the whole animal to understand dynamic locomotion,” co-PI Sponberg says.

The research team also includes PI Monica Daley (UC Irvine), and additional Co-PIs Kiisa Nishikawa (Northern Arizona University), Jill McNitt-Gray (USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences), and Anne Silverman (Colorado School of Mines).

Leveraging expertise

“The Georgia Tech contingent will leverage the Institute's expertise in the multiscale biophysics of muscle, neuromechanics, integrative physiology and bio-robotic movement,” Sponberg says, “including the Institute’s expertise in fundamental muscle biology and movement technologies.”

The group will also collaborate with Tom Irving and Weikang Ma at the Argonne National Lab to leverage multiscale imaging, which will help connect the team’s understanding of the function of muscle at the nanoscale to the properties of that tissue during motion.

A central theme of the new Integrative Movement Sciences Institute will bridge fundamental discoveries about the biophysics and physiology of muscle and movement from insects to humans — research that Sponberg’s lab specializes in.

Last year, Sponberg also received a prestigious Curci grant to study coordinated movement in hawk moths. The team’s goal is to understand how muscle integrates with the rest of a body’s biology and the surrounding environment to allow animals and humans to move through so many varied environments.

“Muscle is unlike any other tissue,” Sponberg says. “It enables movement in all animals and allows them to negotiate nearly every environment on this planet. For humans, it is the key piece of our physiology that translates our brain’s intentions into the movement that lets us get around in our world.

Creating models that can understand muscular control in dynamic, complex environments is vital, and could have applications spanning biotechnology, like building more dynamic robotics, and bioeconomy, creating avenues to develop new physical therapy and rehabilitation protocols.

“By integrating across scale and bringing to bear an interdisciplinary team of biologists, biophysicists, and bioengineers that span the scale from molecule to ecosystem, the new Integrative Movement Science Institute will create the next generation of muscle and movement models and experiments to understand locomotion in diverse settings,” Sponberg adds.

Funding for this research is provided by the National Science Foundation.

Summary sentence

Co-PI Simon Sponberg will lead the Georgia Tech contingent of researchers, which aims to understand dynamic, agile movement.

Summary

NSF has awarded the interdisciplinary team six years of funding to support the Integrative Movement Sciences Institute. The Institute, which includes a Georgia Tech contingent of researchers led by Co-PI Simon Sponberg, aims to bridge research on muscles spanning the molecular level to the whole animal to understand dynamic locomotion.

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Celebrating 100 Years of Psychology at Georgia Tech

admin — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 17:08:41 +0000

Celebrating 100 Years of Psychology at Georgia Tech admin Fri, 02/09/2024 - 12:08

Since the early days of the Institute, Georgia Tech students have explored aspects of the mind, brain, and behavior through psychology. What started as one or two courses in business psychology has since erupted into dynamic, nationally ranked psychology research and academic programs that serve hundreds of students annually.

“Beginning with just a few courses in applied psychology, psychology at Georgia Tech has evolved into one of the most dynamic and distinctive psychology schools globally,” says Tansu Celikel, professor and chair of the School of Psychology. “Our educational and research endeavors are designed to meet the needs of our students and the society as we explore the causal interplay between the mind, brain, behavior and technology.”

Though psychology courses had been taught at the Institute prior, it was in 1924 that psychology became a core requirement for three of Tech’s then 12 degree programs, solidifying it as a staple of the Georgia Tech curriculum.

To commemorate the past century of psychology at Georgia Tech, we’re taking a deep dive into its storied history at the Institute.

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Since the early days of the Institute, Georgia Tech students have explored aspects of the mind, brain, and behavior through psychology. To commemorate 100 years of psychology at Georgia Tech, we’re taking a deep dive into its storied history.

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Fri, 02/09/2024 - 12:00

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