A simulated neuro-robotic environment for bi-directional closed-loop experiments

Abstract

We have developed a new simulation environment, called NeuVision, that is able to perform neuro-robotic experiments in a closed-loop architecture, by simulating a large-scale neuronal network bi-directionally connected to a robot. We conceived it primarily as a support tool to be used in the context of the ‘embodied electrophysiology’, a growing field that could help, in the future, to realize innovative bi-directional and adaptive Brain-Machine Interfaces. The main features of our system are related to the efficient visualization of the neural activity, the possibility to define different connectivity rules and stimulation points, and the integration of statistical analysis tools for fast neural dynamics characterization. Our preliminary results show that we are able to reproduce both spontaneous and evoked activity of cultured networks. Hence, by defining a decoding strategy based on the Center of Activity, we carried out experiments with a simulated neuronal network in a closed-loop with a robot. Our results suggest the NeuVision simulated environment could be used as a tool to support in vitro experiments with real systems.

Keywords

• embodied neural modeling
• robot simulator
• coding
• decoding
• center of activity trajectory (cat)