Brain Delay

 A new study was published in the journal Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications. Scientists from Bar-llan University and Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center are studying brain delays.

Biological components are less reliable than electrical ones. Rather than instantly receiving incoming signals, the signals arrive with an arrangement of delays. This forces the brain to use each neuron to integrate the incoming signals overtime and fire backwards. It also forces the brain to use a population of neurons, instead of just one to overstep neuronal cells that won't fire.

But could brain delays be a benefit to brain learning?

Professor Kanter is involved with the study. He reports, "The great benefit of having a system with delays is the dynamics of the brain can use the delays as an advantage. In artificial neural networks, each object needs it's own output unit to be recognized, whereas the brain can use one neuronal output where its activity as a function of time differentiates between different objects. Essentially, one could say that the brain uses time to learn and the computer uses space."

Yarden Tzach is a PhD student in the lab. He summarizes, "This makes the brain much more modular to changes without requiring a change in architecture. Learning new objects doesn't require a different architecture, rather just learning a signal at an additional output time. This also shows recognition of a combination of objects. Let's say a picture of a horse can be recognized at a certain time, a picture of a person at another, but a person riding a horse can be recognized at some intermediate time in between."

Study of delay is thought to be of great benefit in the learning dynamics of the brain. This research will ensure faster and more in-depth artificial learning systems!