Starts: Mar 11, 2010 11:00

Ends: Mar 11, 2010 13:00

How do evolutionary systems originate? Dr. Fernando will consider two extremely diverse examples: metabolic evolution, and our recently proposed theory of neuronal evolution.

It has been hypothesized that metabolic evolution took place before genetic evolution. Prof. Eörs Szathmáry, Dr. Fernando and their colleagues consider the evolvability of an abstract generative chemistry enclosed in compartments, in order to understand the fundamental principles underlying pre-template evolution.

They have hypothesized that neuronal replicators (patterns of neuronal connectivity or neuronal activity) exist in the brain and are capable of making mutated copies of themselves at very rapid timescales in the order of seconds. Neuronal copying may have arisen primarily for memory, e.g. to prevent catastrophic forgetting, but would later have been exapted for adaptive search.

Dr. Fernando will conclude by considering general principles in the origin of information replication in the origin of life and in cognition.

Chrisantha Fernando has been carrying out this research within the framework of a 2-year Marie Curie fellowship at Collegium Budapest. He is also a fellow in the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex, Brighton. His main areas of interests are Theoretical Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Neuroscience and Computational Neuroscience.

Selected Publications:
(1) Fernando, C., Bush, D. Husbands, P., Szathmáry, E. (2010) "Spatiotemporal Spike Patterns and Symbol Manipulation in Neuronal Networks," Cognitive Science. [Submitted]. (2) Fernando, C., Goldstein, R., Szathmáry, E. (2010) "The Neuronal Replicator Hypothesis." PloS Comp. Biol. [Submitted]. (3) Fernando, C. (2010) "Neuronal Replicators Solve the Stability Plasticity Dilemma." GECCO 2010 Portland Oregon. [Submitted]. In Press: (4) Fernando, C. & Szathmáry, E. (2009) "Chemical, neuronal and linguistic replicators" in M. Pigliucci and G. Müller (eds) Evolution: the Extended Synthesis. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. [Forthcoming] (5) Fernando, C. & Szathmáry, E. (2009) "The neuronal replicator hypothesis" in V. Goel, A. von Müller and B. Glatzeder (eds.) Towards a Theory of Thinking. Springer- Verlag, Berlin. [Forthcoming]. (6) Szathmary, E. & Fernando, C. (2009) "Concluding Remarks" in K. Sterelny (ed.) KLI Meeting on Major Transitions.[Forthcoming].