About CSN

CSN aims to facilitate a roadmap and carry out actions to accelerate the development of future real-world technologies.

The development of future real-world technologies will depend strongly on our understanding and harnessing of the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems. Major societal and economical impacts are expected, particulary with respect to quality of life and health, in the areas of information and communication technologies, robotics, brain-machine interfacing and nanotechnology applied to life sciences. The following are some examples:

• novel biomimetic architectures and technologies for robots,
• the ability to create sensing and acting nano-scale systems,
• artificial sensory organs and actuators,
• the advancement of new brain based computational paradigms that will drive future real-world systems and the development of new high-throughput drug discovery approaches,
• the development of new forms of brain machine interfaces in neurorehabilitation.

A key focus in CSN will be on the physiological basis for intelligent behaviour and thus on neuromimetics—the modelling of neural systems.

Exciting emerging topics within this field include the embodiment of neuromimetic controllers in hardware (neuromorphics) and within the control architectures of complex artefacts such as robots (neurorobotics). Such systems could lead to significant advances in the brain sciences, that, in addition to promoting the design of more effective and intelligent machines, will help us to understand ourselves better and aid in the search for cures to neurological disease and to improve the quality of life.

CSN main activities

Conferences
• It is our pleasure to announce The Living Machine Conference 2012
The 1st International Conference on Biomimetics and Biohybrid Systems
to be held in Barcelona in July 9-12 2012

Schools
• The Barcelona Summer School on Cognition, Brain, and Technology BCBT (annually September)
• School on Neurophysiology for Biohybrid and Biomimetic Research (March 2011)

Workshops and teaching
• The CapoCaccia Cognitive Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop (annually April-May).
• Roadmapping Workshops
• Online Research and Teaching Repository

CSN wins a price for best exhibit at FET11!!