Self-organization based on auditory feedback promotes acquisition of babbling

Abstract

Interaction between the body and the brain network is important for cognitive and behavioral development. Sensory feedback to the brain, originating from the body, accelerates self-organization of the brain network. This self-organization may lead to the acquisition of new behaviors. However, how self-organization promotes behavior acquisition and how this brain-behavior interaction develops remain unclear. We propose a recurrent spiking neural network (RSN) model of the acquisition of canonical babbling, and show that self-organization of the RSN based on auditory feedback can promote such acquisition. In this model, the output of the RSN is converted to vocalization, and its sound spectrum is fed back to the RSN. Synaptic weights in the RSN are updated via spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). The output weights of the RSN are modulated by the dopamine STDP, i.e., reward learning to acquire the babbling. The study demonstrated that in the model incorporating STDP under auditory feedback, babbling was acquired faster than it was in the model without STDP. Our analysis indicated that self-organization enhanced the complexity of dynamics of the RSN, resulting in faster reward learning. We also found that there was an optimal balance between STDP and dopamine STDP, which implies that self-organization that is too fast or too slow may be disadvantageous with regard to behavior acquisition.