Electromagnetic Dendritic Object

A term coined by Henry Markram in a lecture at the IBM Research Almaden conference on cognitive computing.

Main Idea

The world as a Electromagnetic Dendritic Object - a virtual environment

We do not see the world, we use any clue that our senses can provide us to build a virtual analog model of the world on the dendrites

  • Neurons learn to Contribute to the circuit to build a distributed dendritic object
  • The circuitry provides the rules to build and animate dendritic objects
  • Advanced cognition is the ability to run a simulation of the model into the future to optimize adaptation
  • Different brains can learn to build a similar model
  • Animals see the world differently because they build it differently, based on major differences in the brains capabilities

Spikes as animators of perceptions

  • Spikes emitted on top of dendritic perceptual waves
  • Minimize the number of spikes used as we learn to transfer just the required information

We use spikes to transfer the minimum information required to change or transfer perceptions

  • Perceptions before the spike
  • Resting potentials contribute to perceptions

External references