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International Conference on Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation

UCNC 2014: Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation pp 316–326Cite as

Artificial Astrocyte Networks, as Components in Artificial Neural Networks

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8553))

Abstract

Recent findings in neurophysiology provided evidence that not only neurons but also networks of glia-astrocytes are responsible for processing information in the human brain. Based on these new findings, information processing in the brain is defined as communication between neurons-neurons, neurons-astrocytes and astrocytes-astrocytes. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) model the neuron-neuron communications. Artificial neuron-glia networks (ANGN), in addition to neuron-neuron communications, model neuron-astrocyte connections. This research introduces a new model of ANGN that captures these three possible communications. In this model, random networks of artificial glia astrocytes are implemented on top of a typical neural network. The networks are tested on two classification problems, and the results show that on certain combinations of parameter values specifying astrocyte connections, the new networks outperform typical neural networks. This research opens a range of possibilities for future work on designing more powerful architectures of artificial neural networks that provide more realistic models of the human brain.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada

    Zahra Sajedinia

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  1. Zahra Sajedinia
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Correspondence to Zahra Sajedinia .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Santa Barbara College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    Oscar H. Ibarra

  2. University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

    Lila Kari

  3. University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

    Steffen Kopecki

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Sajedinia, Z. (2014). Artificial Astrocyte Networks, as Components in Artificial Neural Networks. In: Ibarra, O., Kari, L., Kopecki, S. (eds) Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation. UCNC 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8553. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08123-6_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08123-6_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08122-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08123-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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