Introduction

Natural computation means taking inspiration, ideas, and techniques from nature and the world around us to improve the way we do things. It has reaches in every aspect of life, from systems which work out the best way to grit the roads in your town, to complex models of the human brain to aid in finding cures for Alzheimer's and dementia.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a fascinating yet terrifying neurological disorder, affecting an increasing proportion of the population and resulting in degraded memory, loss of personality, and eventually death. Major changes occur in the brain during the course of the disease, with neurons dying and protein plaques forming, but we don't yet know the causes of or any cures for AD. Using computer-based artificial neural networks to model what happens during the progress of the disease we can experiment easily and ethically to try to better understand AD and work towards finding causes and possible preventions for what will otherwise become a global epidemic.

Research abstract

Computational Modelling of Neurological Disorders

This work will begin with the undertaking of a general literature review to better understand and attempt to synthesize the field of computational modelling of neurological disorders, and recent developments within it. Disorders currently of particular interest are Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. The literature review is expected to identify a number of current computational models focussing on different aspects of the various disorders, as well as shortcomings of these models and potential ways forward. The main contribution of the work will be the development of improved and refined models that better represent the underlying biological processes. The work will involve testing of the improved models against empirical evidence (either from medical literature or specifically-commissioned experiments) to ascertain the level of support which can be given to them. The approach adopted will involve various techniques from the fields of neural computation and computational neuroscience, and possibly evolutionary computation.

Publications and reports

• My blog contains the most up-to-date thoughts and progress relating to my research.
  

Research Student Monitoring Group reports

• RSMG 1 research abstract (above), Oct 2009.
  
• RSMG 2 progress report, April 2010.
  

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Other projects

My research into the fields of natural computation, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science.

• Probabilistic analysis of pulsed signals in radio telescope data using particle filters.
  Searching for pulsars or extra-terrestrial communication using particle filters (this was my undergraduate final-year project).
  
• Genetic algorithm techniques and representations for sports betting
  Teaching computers to predict the results of football matches (this was my Master's thesis).
• PopRacer: Evolving the ability to race in virtual cars with neural networks
  Group project, now part of the Poplog SimAgent toolkit, with Mike Brook, Pete Zeidman, Francis Noumbi, Damien Clarke, and Anushka Gunawardana.
• Older projects completed during my undergraduate and masters years at University.