IBN 98-03836 Shihab Shamma, P.I. This project is a series of annual 3-week hands-on workshops held in Telluride, Colorado. Neuromorphic engineering is a discipline which reverses the usual thrust of computational neuroscience, orienting itself toward the derivation of engineered devices from an understanding of the design principles of the nervous system. In so doing, it is having a unique beneficial effect on neurobiology research. On the one hand, it represents a departure from the usual engineering principles based on linear analog devices or unabashedly digital ones (e.g. most modern computers), and hence is contributing to development of robots which perform smoothly under highly variable external conditions the way biological organisms do. On the other hand, it drives biological research because biologists typically cannot supply (and may tend to avoid) the level of quantitative detail of questioning asked about the way the nervous system is designed. The workshop involves tutorial-style lectures on general as well as practical topics in neuromorphic engineering, practical courses on VLSI, circuits, "floating gate" technology; both short and long hands-on projects (e.g building robots with neuromorphic control circuits). Funding is partially supporting travel for faculty and students for a total of around 60 persons (faculty, students, staff).
