Auditory Cortex

In the past two weeks, I’ve focused on designing the auditory cortex. As I covered the audio CMU recently, the transition to the auditory cortex would be smooth, so I prioritized its build over its visual counterpart. Additionally, I’ve refined the auditory nerve fiber implementation to incorporate the volley principle.

Development Activity - https://github.com/akhil-reddy/beads/graphs/commit-activity
Building the Auditory Nerve components - https://github.com/akhil-reddy/beads/blob/main/beads/core/cmu/transportation/audio.py

Please note that some code (class templates, function comments, etc) is AI generated, so that I spend more of my productive time thinking and designing. However, I cross-verify each block of generated code with its corresponding design choice before moving ahead.

Algorithms / Development

Push implementation and transportation

1. Define biologically accurate constants for the auditory nerve fibers
2. For each vesicle release
   • For each fiber in the channel
     • Add some noise to the above voltage threshold constants (optional)
     • If the AN fiber is in the refractory (cool down) period, do nothing
     • Else,
       • The change in potential dV is defined according to the leaky integrate model
       • Add a stochastic component to dV (optional)
       • Add dV to the instantaneous potential of the membrane
       • If the spike condition is met, generate a spike!

Next Steps

Building the Environmental Response System (ERS)

1. Building the visual cortex
2. Building the ERUs
3. Neurotransmitters - Fed by vision’s bipolar and amacrine cells, for example, to act on contrasting and/or temporal stimulus. Neurotransmitters (and their lifecycles) can be added later during ERU development

Deployment

1. Overlaying video frames onto the retina, including code optimization for channel processing
2. Overlaying audio clips onto the cochlea, including optimization for wave segment processing
3. Parallelization / streaming of cellular events via Flink or equivalent

Design Retrospective - Reconciling the audio CMU / cochlea implementation with Beads design