On the inter-relations between artificial and physiological neural networks

Abstract

This paper discusses the inter-relations between findings on the physiological neural network (PNN) and artificial neural networks (ANN). It discusses the interaction of progress in both PNN and ANN for the purpose of borrowing from ANN's mathematical understandings to establish pointers for further explorations to better understand the PNN, and also for the reciprocal transferring of knowledge from PNN findings to improve ANN schemes. Such improvements in ANN are essential for better handling the needs of the information technology (IT) explosion in dealing with huge data bases and where data often defy analysis and are incomplete and fuzzy. On the other hand, principles and elements of ANN designs that appear to be important and successful can serve as guides for identifying them in the PNN, to be subsequently confirmed by bioanalytical tests. Hence progress in PNN is obviously essential for progress in ANN, as is progress in ANN helpful in PNN modeling, though its laboratory confirmation is still a far lengthier process. We discuss certain specific ANN schemes with respect to the above inter-relations with PNN. We feel that the progress in both PNN and ANN research provides a major link between the thrust in information technology developments and the thrust in biological science research, which are most probably the two major focus areas of research at the dawn of the 21st century. [Neurol Res 2001; 23: 482-488]