HPCwire

Since 1986 - Covering the Fastest Computers
in the World and the People Who Run Them

Language Flags

Visit additional Tabor Communication Publications

Datanami
Digital Manufacturing Report
HPC in the Cloud
Green Computing Report

Tabor Communications
Corporate Video

Researchers Induce Virtual Schizophrenia


You can go ahead and pre-file this story in your "More Ways Brains Are Just Like Computers and Vice Versa" folder in advance if you'd like, but this neuroscience/computer network story does have a unique twist.

There are a number of theories that propose ideas for what causes schizophrenia, among which is the "hyperlearning hypothesis." In this line of reasoning, those who suffer from schizophrenia have brains that refuse to forget or cast aside as much as others who do not have the condition.

As a recent article described, "Without forgetting, one loses the ability to extract what's meaningful out of the immensity of stimuli the brain encounters. [Schizophrenics] start making connections that aren't real and start drowning in a sea of so many connections that they lose the ability to stitch together any kind of coherent story."

A team of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University have discovered that this same problem can happen with computer networks that "cannot forget fast enough" and acquire a sort of virtual schizophrenia. Using a model of a neural network, when they added virtual dopamine (which is the trigger for the "over-remembering") to show how networks can recall memories in a schizophrenic manner as well.

This neural network, called DISCERN, has the ability to learn natural language. For this study that straddles neuroscience and computer science, the team simulated what happens to language when eight different neurological dysfunctions are introduced -- schizophrenia being among them.

The model was based on telling a series of simple stories to DISCERN, which were, as described "assimilated into DISCERN's memory in much the way the human brain stores information -- not as distinct units but as statistical relationships of words, sentences, scripts and stories." The team repeats these, eventually "training" the computer to understand.

One neurological researcher weighed in on the concept, noting that this is "basically a series of connectionist models. These are computer simulations of a large number of simple units or nodes that can have "activiations" of varying strengths and which have connections to other nodes. This model ‘learns' by modifying the strength of these connections according to some kind of simple learning rule." This researcher notes that there are clear connections between human brains and these connectionist models -- they are far simpler than brains yet they can do complicated things like recognize faces or objects.

Dr. Ralph Hoffman, a professor of psychiatry at Yale analyzed the results, comparing the computer to the neural network patterns. While there were remarkable similarities in the process behind understanding and interpreting information into memory and back out to output, one of the projects leaders explains that this is not proof of the hyperlearning hypothesis, but it does support it.

You can read the full paper from the journal, Biological Psychiatry, Using Computational Patients to Evaluate Illness Mechanisms in Schizophrenia or read a condensed summary of the findings from the University of Texas at Austin.

Sponsored Links

High-Performance Computing in Action
Businesses that want to be on the cutting edge of their industries are increasingly turning to high-performance computing (HPC) solutions to handle complex compute processes and speed up their rate of innovation. Download this Executive Brief to see how businesses in energy, life sciences and entertainment put HPC solutions to work in their operations.

Accelerate your science with Seneca
One of the first HPC providers installing a 4X NVIDIA Kepler K-20 cluster. Invites you to a free evaluation on Seneca’s NVIDIA K20 Kepler cluster, pre-loaded with AMBER, NAMD, LAMMPS

May 17, 2013

May 16, 2013

May 15, 2013

May 14, 2013

May 13, 2013

May 10, 2013

May 09, 2013

May 08, 2013

May 07, 2013

May 06, 2013



Feature Articles

Saddling Phi for TACC’s Stampede

The Xeon Phi coprocessor might be the new kid on the high performance block, but out of all first-rate kickers of the Intel tires, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) got the first real jab with its new top ten Stampede system.We talk with the center's Karl Schultz about the challenges of programming for Phi--but more specifically, the optimization...
Read more...

"No Exascale for You!" An Interview with Berkeley Lab's Horst Simon

Although Horst Simon was named Deputy Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he maintains his strong ties to the scientific computing community as an editor of the TOP500 list and as an invited speaker at conferences.
Read more...

Supercomputing Vet Champions Quantum Cause

Supercomputing veteran, Bo Ewald, has been neck-deep in bleeding edge system development since his twelve-year stint at Cray Research back in the mid-1980s, which was followed by his tenure at large organizations like SGI and startups, including Scale Eight Corporation and Linux Networx. He has put his weight behind quantum company....
Read more...

Sponsored Whitepapers

Best Practices in Big Data Storage

05/10/2013 | Cleversafe, Cray, DDN, NetApp, & Panasas | From Wall Street to Hollywood, drug discovery to homeland security, companies and organizations of all sizes and stripes are coming face to face with the challenges – and opportunities – afforded by Big Data. Before anyone can utilize these extraordinary data repositories, however, they must first harness and manage their data stores, and do so utilizing technologies that underscore affordability, security, and scalability.

Progress in Parallel: the Bull Parallel Programming Center

04/15/2013 | Bull | “50% of HPC users say their largest jobs scale to 120 cores or less.” How about yours? Are your codes ready to take advantage of today’s and tomorrow’s ultra-parallel HPC systems? Download this White Paper by Analysts Intersect360 Research to see what Bull and Intel’s Center for Excellence in Parallel Programming can do for your codes.

Sponsored Multimedia

SGI DMF ZeroWatt Disk Solution

In this demonstration of SGI DMF ZeroWatt disk solution, Dr. Eng Lim Goh, SGI CTO, discusses a function of SGI DMF software to reduce costs and power consumption in an exascale (Big Data) storage datacenter.

Cray CS300-AC Cluster Supercomputer Air Cooling Technology Video

The Cray CS300-AC cluster supercomputer offers energy efficient, air-cooled design based on modular, industry-standard platforms featuring the latest processor and network technologies and a wide range of datacenter cooling requirements.

SC12 Editorial Feature HPCwire Soundbite sponsored by ISC

HPC Job Bank


Featured Events


  • June 16, 2013 - June 20, 2013
    ISC'13
    Leipzig,
    Germany

  • June 17, 2013 - June 18, 2013
    Forecast 2013
    San Francisco, CA
    United States





HPCwire Events