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InnoVirtuoso Review: How Neural Networks Grow Smarter, According to Peter Robin Hiesinger

InnoVirtuoso Review: How Neural Networks Grow Smarter, According to Peter Robin Hiesinger

September 1, 2025

Review from August 16, 2025, originally published here: https://innovirtuoso.com/artificial-intelligence/the-self-assembling-brain-kindle-edition-review-how-neural-networks-grow-smarter-according-to-peter-robin-hiesinger/ Table of Contents What would it take to build a brain from scratch—and could artificial intelligence skip the long, messy process nature uses? If those questions make your neurons fire, Peter Robin Hiesinger’s The Self-Assembling Brain: How Neural Networks Grow Smarter will feel like a guided lab tour through the deepest…

Berlin Radio Interview on the ‘Neurobiology of Artficial Intelligence’ (in German)

July 16, 2025

Berlin Radio (RBB) interview about the research in the Hiesinger lab and its connection to understanding information encoding in biological and artificial neural networks – the topic of The Self-Assembling Brain. The interview ‘Die Neurobiologie der Künstlichen Intelligenz’ (in German) is available here. A related online lecture ‘Neurobiology of Artificial Intelligence’ (recorded by IEEE Computational Intellgence Society, Dec. 2024, in…

Hiesinger Lab Grant Award: The Information Content of Brain Wiring

July 2, 2025

The information content of the brain, i.e. the size of a hard drive it would take for lossless up- anddownloading of information stored in biological neural networks of any size, is unknown. Bycontrast, the information content of artificial neural networks that underlie virtually allcontemporary artificial intelligence, is well defined and can be saved on a hard drive in a precisenumber…

On Neuromorphic Computing

July 2, 2025

There is an exciting, increasing interest of the neuromorphic computing community in the development of biological neural networks and The Self-Assembling Brain. Recent invited lectures include the International Conference for Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering (Aachen, 2024), and the International Workshop on Reliable and Systainable Neuromorphic Hardware (York, 2025), with production of a mindmap during the introductory keynote: Next opportunity to…

Book Review by Chris Shayan

May 23, 2025

originally published here: https://www.chrisshayan.com/blog-posts/the-self-assembling-brain Book Review The Self-Assembling Brain Peter Robin Hiesinger’s The Self-Assembling Brain offers a fascinating exploration of how neural networks grow smarter. The book delves into the intricate process of brain development, drawing parallels between biological and artificial neural networks. Hiesinger’s engaging writing style makes complex scientific concepts accessible to a wide audience.One of the book’s key…

From the author’s lab: New research paper on self-organization of brain wiring in the journal Science

May 5, 2024

Axonal self-sorting without target guidance in Drosophila visual map formation Agi et al., 2024, Science. PMID: 38452066, DOI: 10.1126/science.adk3043 Abstract The idea of guidance toward a target is central to axon pathfinding and brain wiring in general. In this work, we show how several thousand axonal growth cones self-pattern without target-dependent guidance during neural superposition wiring in Drosophila. Ablation of…

Book Review by Aaron Prather

October 23, 2023

originally published on linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amprather_ai-activity-7109242104911941632-vBmy Aaron Prather Director, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Program at ASTM International As we continue to ponder where #AI is going, it is probably a good idea to look at our own brains and how we developed our own intelligence. This was one of the reasons I picked up a copy of “𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧: 𝐇𝐨𝐰…