In vitro neural networks minimise variational free energy

Isomura, Takuya; Friston, Karl J.

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-35221-w

Cited by 44 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…How this plays out in psychopathology are main themes of this article. Much of our focus will be on what Friston and collaborators call “structure learning” (Tervo et al., 2016; Friston et al., 2017; Gershman, 2017; Isomura and Friston, 2018), namely, learning the repertoire or narratives that constitute our prior beliefs–or hypotheses–about how our world works, and how these might be influenced therapeutically. Although the FEP applies to these structural priors, getting them right can be a tricky business.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Surprise” and the Bayesian Brain: Implications for Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Holmes

Nolte

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The free energy principle (FEP) has gained widespread interest and growing acceptance as a new paradigm of brain function, but has had little impact on the theory and practice of psychotherapy. The aim of this paper is to redress this. Brains rely on Bayesian inference during which “bottom-up” sensations are matched with “top-down” predictions. Discrepancies result in “prediction error.” The brain abhors informational “surprise,” which is minimized by (1) action enhancing the statistical likelihood of sensory samples, (2) revising inferences in the light of experience, updating “priors” to reality-aligned “posteriors,” and (3) optimizing the complexity of our generative models of a capricious world. In all three, free energy is converted to bound energy. In psychopathology energy either remains unbound, as in trauma and inhibition of agency, or manifests restricted, anachronistic “top-down” narratives. Psychotherapy fosters client agency, linguistic and practical. Temporary uncoupling bottom-up from top-down automatism and fostering scrutinized simulations sets a number of salutary processes in train. Mentalising enriches Bayesian inference, enabling experience and feeling states to be “metabolized” and assimilated. “Free association” enhances more inclusive sensory sampling, while dream analysis foregrounds salient emotional themes as “attractors.” FEP parallels with psychoanalytic theory are outlined, including Freud’s unpublished project, Bion’s “contact barrier” concept, the Fonagy/Target model of sexuality, Laplanche’s therapist as “enigmatic signifier,” and the role of projective identification. The therapy stimulates patients to become aware of and revise the priors’ they bring to interpersonal experience. In the therapeutic “duet for one,” the energy binding skills and non-partisan stance of the analyst help sufferers face trauma without being overwhelmed by psychic entropy. Overall, the FEP provides a sound theoretical basis for psychotherapy practice, training, and research.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Surprise” and the Bayesian Brain: Implications for Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Holmes

Nolte

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Importantly, the EGHR only requires such a signal that conveys global information to neurons to achieve learning. Furthermore, a study using in vitro neural networks suggested that neurons perform simple BSS using a plasticity rule that is different from the most basic form of Hebbian plasticity, by which synaptic strengths are updated purely as a product of pre- and postsynaptic activity 75,76 . A candidate implementation of the EGHR can be made for cortical pyramidal cells and inhibitory neurons; the former constituting the EGHR output neurons and encoding the expectations of hidden sources, and the latter constituting the third scalar factor and calculating the nonlinear sum of activity in surrounding pyramidal cells.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-context blind source separation by error-gated Hebbian rule

Isomura

Toyoizumi

2019

Sci Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Animals need to adjust their inferences according to the context they are in. This is required for the multi-context blind source separation (BSS) task, where an agent needs to infer hidden sources from their context-dependent mixtures. The agent is expected to invert this mixing process for all contexts. Here, we show that a neural network that implements the error-gated Hebbian rule (EGHR) with sufficiently redundant sensory inputs can successfully learn this task. After training, the network can perform the multi-context BSS without further updating synapses, by retaining memories of all experienced contexts. This demonstrates an attractive use of the EGHR for dimensionality reduction by extracting low-dimensional sources across contexts. Finally, if there is a common feature shared across contexts, the EGHR can extract it and generalize the task to even inexperienced contexts. The results highlight the utility of the EGHR as a model for perceptual adaptation in animals.

show abstract

“…From the formal perspective of minimizing free energy – or maximizing model evidence, the hierarchical assembly of parsimonious models of the (prosocial) world through our development can be considered in the light of Bayesian model selection or what is called “structure learning” (Gershman and Niv, 2010; Tervo et al, 2016; Isomura and Friston, 2018). In other words, one can build more comprehensive (deep) generative models that have greater evidence (i.e., accuracy minus complexity) by adding layers or rearranging part objects into more complex (or deeper) wholes.…”

Section: The Emergence Of a Dominant Platonic Personmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gravity of Objects: How Affectively Organized Generative Models Influence Perception and Social Behavior

Connolly

2019

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Friston’s (2010) free energy principle (FEP) offers an opportunity to rethink what is meant by the psychoanalytic concept of an object or discrete mental representation (Ogden, 1992). The significance of such objects in psychoanalysis is that they may be superimposed on current experience so that perceptions are partly composed of projected fantasy and partly of more realistic perception. From a free energy perspective, the psychoanalytic (person) object may be understood as a bounded set of prior beliefs about a “platonic” sort of person that provides a free energy minimizing, evidence maximizing, hypothesis to explain inference about – or dyadic interactions with – another. The degree to which realistic perception supervenes – relative to a platonic person object – will depend upon the precision assigned to the sensory evidence (concerning the person) relative to the prior beliefs about a platonic form. This provides a basis for not only explaining projection and transference phenomena but also conceptualizing a central assumption within the object relations psychoanalysis. As an example, the paper examines the Kleinian theory of split good or bad part objects as affectively organized generative models (or platonic part-object models) formed in early infancy. This also provides a basis for building on work by Kernberg (1984, 1996) by conceptualizing the role of the part object(s) in a continuum of reality testing, from mild errors in perception that are relatively easily corrected, through borderline affective instability and frequent shifts between part-object experience, to psychotic failures of reality testing, where Friston et al. (2016) proposed that aberrant precisions bias perception to high precision false beliefs (here cast as platonic part objects), such as stable perceptions of others (and possibly oneself) as persecutory agents of some sort. The paper demonstrates the value that the history of clinical insights into psychoanalysis (including object relations) and a system-based approach to the brain (including the free energy principle) can have for one another. This is offered as a demonstration of the potential value of an “Integrative Clinical Systems Psychology” proposed by Tretter and Lo¨ffler-Stastka (2018), which has the potential to integrate the major theoretical frameworks in the field today.

show abstract

In vitro neural networks minimise variational free energy

Cited by 44 publications

References 55 publications

“Surprise” and the Bayesian Brain: Implications for Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

“Surprise” and the Bayesian Brain: Implications for Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Multi-context blind source separation by error-gated Hebbian rule

The Gravity of Objects: How Affectively Organized Generative Models Influence Perception and Social Behavior

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About