On the precarious path of reverse neuro-engineering
Open accessAbstract
In this perspective we provide an example for the limits of reverse engineering in neuroscience. We demonstrate that application of reverse engineering to the study of the design principle of a functional neuro-system with a known mechanism, may result in a perfectly valid but wrong induction of the system's design principle. If in the very simple setup we bring here (static environment, primitive task and practically unlimited access to every piece of relevant information), it is difficult to induce a design principle, what are our chances of exposing biological design principles when more realistic conditions are examined? Implications to the way we do Biology are discussed.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The brain's deep degeneracy makes the causal manipulation approach not sufficient for gaining a full understanding of the brain's role in behavior.
“When this concern is coupled with the brain's deep degeneracy, it becomes apparent that the causal manipulation approach is not sufficient for gaining a full understanding of the brain's role in behavior”
From Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias (2017) · cites this paper as Marom et al., 2009
The finding that mammalian and avian auditory systems solve the same computational problem with different algorithms and implementations is an example of multiple realizability and deep degeneracy.
“This finding is a compelling example of multiple realizability and deep degeneracy, since different implementational features yield different algorithms, but both solve the same computational problem (Katz, 2016;Marom et al., 2009).”
From Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias (2017) · cites this paper as Marom et al., 2009
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 7 · Cited by 35
- Authors
- Marom, S.
- Affiliations
- Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Marom, Shimon
- ORCID
- Marom, Shimon
- Venue
- Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 5-5
- ISSN
- 1662-5188 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2691154
- OpenAlex
- W2048093796
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 25.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Israel Science Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy and History of Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Neural Networks and Applications
- Keywords
- reverse engineering, design principles, induction, philosophy of biology
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
