Randall C. O'Reilly

Last updated
Randall C. O'Reilly
Born (1967-03-01) March 1, 1967 (age 57)
Nationality American
Alma mater Carnegie Mellon University
Known for Leabra
Scientific career
Fields Psychology
Institutions University of Colorado at Boulder
Thesis The LEABRA model of neural interactions and learning in the neocortex  (1996)
Doctoral advisor James McClelland

Randall Charles O'Reilly (born March 1, 1967) is a professor of psychology and computer science at the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis. His lab moved to UC Davis from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2019. He now works full time at the Astera Institute.

Contents

Education

Randall O'Reilly obtained his B.A. at Harvard University and his M.S. at Carnegie Mellon University. He went on to get a Ph.D. in Psychology also at Carnegie Mellon University in 1996, under the supervision of James McClelland. He did postdoctoral work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. [1]

Research

O'Reilly's research is aimed at developing detailed computational models of the biological basis of cognition. He is most famous for developing of the Leabra recirculating algorithm for learning in neural networks. He has developed a number of successful models of declarative memory, [2] [3] the visual system, [4] and the basal ganglia circuit. [5] [6]

He is one of the main developers of the Emergent neural network simulation software. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brain</span> Organ central to the nervous system

The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for special senses such as vision, hearing and olfaction. Being the most specialized organ, it is responsible for receiving information from the sensory nervous system, processing those information and the coordination of motor control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hippocampus</span> Vertebrate brain region involved in memory consolidation

The hippocampus is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic system, and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory, and in spatial memory that enables navigation. The hippocampus is located in the allocortex, with neural projections into the neocortex, in humans as well as other primates. The hippocampus, as the medial pallium, is a structure found in all vertebrates. In humans, it contains two main interlocking parts: the hippocampus proper, and the dentate gyrus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuropil</span> Type of area in the nervous system

Neuropil is any area in the nervous system composed of mostly unmyelinated axons, dendrites and glial cell processes that forms a synaptically dense region containing a relatively low number of cell bodies. The most prevalent anatomical region of neuropil is the brain which, although not completely composed of neuropil, does have the largest and highest synaptically concentrated areas of neuropil in the body. For example, the neocortex and olfactory bulb both contain neuropil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basal ganglia</span> Group of subcortical nuclei involved in the motor and reward systems

The basal ganglia (BG) or basal nuclei are a group of subcortical nuclei found in the brains of vertebrates. In humans and other primates, differences exist, primarily in the division of the globus pallidus into external and internal regions, and in the division of the striatum. Positioned at the base of the forebrain and the top of the midbrain, they have strong connections with the cerebral cortex, thalamus, brainstem and other brain areas. The basal ganglia are associated with a variety of functions, including regulating voluntary motor movements, procedural learning, habit formation, conditional learning, eye movements, cognition, and emotion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Limbic system</span> Set of brain structures involved in emotion and motivation

The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.

Computational neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematics, computer science, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to understand the principles that govern the development, structure, physiology and cognitive abilities of the nervous system.

David Courtenay Marr was a British neuroscientist and physiologist. Marr integrated results from psychology, artificial intelligence, and neurophysiology into new models of visual processing. His work was very influential in computational neuroscience and led to a resurgence of interest in the discipline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neocortex</span> Mammalian structure involved in higher-order brain functions

The neocortex, also called the neopallium, isocortex, or the six-layered cortex, is a set of layers of the mammalian cerebral cortex involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, generation of motor commands, spatial reasoning and language. The neocortex is further subdivided into the true isocortex and the proisocortex.

Explicit memory is one of the two main types of long-term human memory, the other of which is implicit memory. Explicit memory is the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences, and concepts. This type of memory is dependent upon three processes: acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neural circuit</span> Network or circuit of neurons

A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Multiple neural circuits interconnect with one another to form large scale brain networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emergent (software)</span> Neural simulation software

Emergent is a neural simulation software that is primarily intended for creating models of the brain and cognitive processes. Development initially began in 1995 at Carnegie Mellon University, and as of 2014, continues at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The 3.x release of the software, which was known as PDP++, is featured in the textbook Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Hasselmo</span> American neuroscientist

Michael Hasselmo is an American neuroscientist and professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. He is the director of the Center for Systems Neuroscience and is editor-in-chief of Hippocampus (journal). Hasselmo studies oscillatory dynamics and neuromodulatory regulation in cortical mechanisms for memory guided behavior and spatial navigation using a combination of neurophysiological and behavioral experiments in conjunction with computational modeling. In addition to his peer-reviewed publications, Hasselmo wrote the book How We Remember: Brain Mechanisms of Episodic Memory.

Leabra stands for local, error-driven and associative, biologically realistic algorithm. It is a model of learning which is a balance between Hebbian and error-driven learning with other network-derived characteristics. This model is used to mathematically predict outcomes based on inputs and previous learning influences. This model is heavily influenced by and contributes to neural network designs and models. This algorithm is the default algorithm in emergent when making a new project, and is extensively used in various simulations.

Hierarchical temporal memory (HTM) is a biologically constrained machine intelligence technology developed by Numenta. Originally described in the 2004 book On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee, HTM is primarily used today for anomaly detection in streaming data. The technology is based on neuroscience and the physiology and interaction of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex of the mammalian brain.

The neuroanatomy of memory encompasses a wide variety of anatomical structures in the brain.

Prefrontal cortex basal ganglia working memory (PBWM) is an algorithm that models working memory in the prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia.

The 1-2-AX working memory task is a cognitive test which requires working memory to be solved.

A Bayesian Confidence Propagation Neural Network (BCPNN) is an artificial neural network inspired by Bayes' theorem, which regards neural computation and processing as probabilistic inference. Neural unit activations represent probability ("confidence") in the presence of input features or categories, synaptic weights are based on estimated correlations and the spread of activation corresponds to calculating posterior probabilities. It was originally proposed by Anders Lansner and Örjan Ekeberg at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. This probabilistic neural network model can also be run in generative mode to produce spontaneous activations and temporal sequences.

Catastrophic interference, also known as catastrophic forgetting, is the tendency of an artificial neural network to abruptly and drastically forget previously learned information upon learning new information.

In psychology, associative memory is defined as the ability to learn and remember the relationship between unrelated items. This would include, for example, remembering the name of someone or the aroma of a particular perfume. This type of memory deals specifically with the relationship between these different objects or concepts. A normal associative memory task involves testing participants on their recall of pairs of unrelated items, such as face-name pairs. Associative memory is a declarative memory structure and episodically based.

References

  1. "Randall C. O'Reilly's Home Page".
  2. McClelland, J. L.; McNaughton, B. L.; O'Reilly, R. C. (1995). "Why there are complementary learning systems in the Hippocampus and Neocortex: Insights from the successes and failures of connectionist models of learning and memory". Psychological Review. 102 (3): 419–457. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.102.3.419. PMID   7624455.
  3. O'Reilly, R. C.; Rudy, J. W. (2000). "Computational Principles of Learning in the Neocortex and Hippocampus". Hippocampus. 10 (4): 389–397. doi:10.1002/1098-1063(2000)10:4<389::AID-HIPO5>3.0.CO;2-P. PMID   10985278. S2CID   3145564.
  4. Herd, S. A.; O'Reilly, R. C. (2005). "Serial visual search from a parallel model". Vision Research. 45 (24): 2987–2992. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2005.07.017 . PMID   16139862.
  5. O'Reilly, R. C.; Frank, M. J. (2006). "Making working memory work: A computational model of learning in the frontal cortex and basal ganglia". Neural Computation. 18 (2): 283–328. doi:10.1162/089976606775093909. PMID   16378516. S2CID   8912485.
  6. Frank, M. J.; Loughry, B.; O'Reilly, R. C. (2001). "Interactions between the frontal cortex and basal ganglia in working memory: A computational model". Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. 1 (2): 137–160. doi: 10.3758/CABN.1.2.137 . PMID   12467110.
  7. "The emergent neural modeling system". Neural Networks. October 2008. Retrieved 4 March 2013.