Frankfurt's Research Centre For Neurotechnology Paves The Way For A New Generation Of Artificial Vision Systems

Main Category: Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 30 Jan 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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An international team of experts has just recommended a new Research Centre for Neurotechnology in Frankfurt/Main with funding totalling several million Euros over a period of five years. It is part of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research´s Bernstein Programme for neurotechnology. The aim of neurotechnology is to elucidate the principles of information processing in the brain and to use this for developing new technologies.

"Throughout the world neurotechnology has reached a turning point," says Prof. Dr. Christoph von der Malsburg. "We are investigating how areas of the brain are organized to form a functioning whole, instead of concentrating on individual functions". Increasingly researchers are looking for the mechanisms by which the brain combines individual functions varying from estimates of distance and movement to the recognition and tracking of objects. By using general principles of neural organisation this kind of coordination should now become possible. "Here our model is the process by which babies learn to see their visual environment through autonomous discovery", explains Prof. Dr. Jochen Triesch, who is coordinating the project with Prof. von der Malsburg. Both are Senior Fellows at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS). Prof. von der Malsburg has, until recently, been teaching at the University of Southern California and at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Triesch comes from the University of California in San Diego.

Dr Rudolf Mester, who heads the Laboratory for Visual Perception at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, claims there is "enormous potential for putting this to practical use, for example in intelligent security systems and eventually in autonomous vehicles."

Several institutes and researchers are involved in the work at the Bernstein Centre alongside the FIAS and the Goethe University, including the Honda Research Institute in Offenbach, the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, scientists from Darmstadt and Heidelberg and a number of industrial companies.

With an eminent scientific advisory board as international network, the broadly based "Frankfurt Vision Initiative" shows all the signs of becoming an internationally visible new focus in this area of research.

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For further information please contact:
Prof. Dr. Christoph von der Malsburg, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Campus Riedberg
Prof. Dr. Jochen Triesch, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Campus Riedberg

Source: Christoph von der Malsburg
Goethe University Frankfurt

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