The design of a proto-animal brain based upon spike timing

Abstract

A basal animal model is described as an organism similar to a Limpet that is attached to the sea floor living in a reproductive community. Its brain model uses logic cells (gates) to create a high frequency spike generator. Addition logic cells create a timing framework based upon Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), and create multi-cell, spike driven muscle actuators and bi-directional shift registers that serve as memories. Together, these logic cells generate a pulse train that forms a recurrent fractal in the form of coherent square waves that consist of an equal number of set pulses and reset pulses. These pulses drive the actuators that pump water and food through its shell. Some of these individuals lose their permanent attachment to the sea floor, and evolve the ability to move around using the feeding motions. This creates the hazard of getting stuck against an object or moving away from its breeding community. They evolve a sensor system and logic cells that produce a restoring motion for each avoidance motion. This keeps the animal in the specific region of an object that it encounters (hefting), and maintains the zero sum (coherence) of the fractal, and connects the organism cyberneticly to objects that are sensed in its environment. The logic units evolve to store permanent memories, and add plus and minus pulse trains together into a single pulse train that allow the animal to follow a moving object (imprinting). Additional logic units evolve that allow the animal to heft using contacts with multiple objects that allow the animal to return to its point of origin (reproductive migration) using permanent memories that are created when a pulse is not reset to zero.So, information is stored in multiple logic cells instead of a connection to one logic cell, and is based upon spike timing rather than static (synaptic) connections between cells.