My research interests

My research interests

See the keywords of my research interests in my Homepage. The interests listed there are *many*, I know. Indeed, I am interested in a lot of things. However, as unfortunately the time available to each of us is little, I am now trying to focus on researches related to modelling brain and behaviour, while I am leaving the collective robotics and economic/well-being interests to sleep for a while (I will get back to them later on in my life).

In what follows I just want to say few methodological words on my bulk of research focussed on brain and behaviour.

Computational Embodied Neuroscience: A Modelling Approach to Study how Brain Generates Behaviour

Here I illustrate the methodological principles that guide the work carried out by the research group I lead. These principles are as follows:

(a) Evolutionary framework: behaviour, and hence brain, were shaped by evolution to sub serve organisms' survival and reproduction. This implies that to fully understand behaviour and brain we need to understand their function, namely how they contribute to organisms’ adaptation in ecological conditions, and how they became what they are the course of evolution.

(b) Complex systems framework: behaviour is a process emerging from the functioning of the complex system brain. This implies that to fully understand behaviour and brain we need to study them with computational models and simulations, e.g. capable of generating behaviour on the basis of the local interplay of units such as neurons (neural networks) and neural-networks (networks of neural networks).

(d) Embodied framework: behaviour is generated by the interplay of organisms with the environment, supported by their sensors and actuators. This implies that to understand behaviour and brain we need to study them by explicitly simulating such interaction.

(e) Computational Neuroscience double constraints: in order to be capable of selecting models, and so develop a cumulative understanding of brain and behaviour, we need to constrain and validate models on both behavioural and neuroscientific (anatomical and physiological) evidence.