Prof. Tony J. Prescott
From Scholarpedia
Dept Psychology, Univ of Sheffield, UK
Current Appointments
- Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK.
- Co-Director of the University of Sheffield's Adaptive Behaviour Research Group
- Director of the Active Touch Laboratory at Sheffield (ATL@S)
- Visiting Fellow at Bristol Robotics Laboratory
Education
- MA Psychology (honours), University of Edinburgh, 1984.
- MSc Applied Artificial Intelligence, University of Aberdeen, 1989.
- PhD, University of Sheffield, 1994.
Research Interests
My research is concerned with understanding brain function using methods in the computational, neural, and behavioural sciences. An important focus is on comparing the control problems faced by animals and robots: (i) using insights from robotics and artificial intelligence to understand the control architecture of the brain (e.g. 8), (ii) using evidence from brain evolution to inspire the design of robot control systems (4), and (iii) using robots to evaluate computational models of neural systems and to test hypotheses that are difficult to investigate in vivo (2, 6). A key focus of this work has been to understand the neural substrates of action selection in the vertebrate brain, particularly the basal ganglia (6, 7, 9) and the reticular formation (5). I have also applied this general approach to the understanding of active sensing in mammals, particularly in the context of vibrissal (whisker) sensing in rats (2, 3), and currently co-ordinate a multi-centre project, BIOTACT, funded by the European Union to investigate natural and artificial vibrissal sensing systems. To help promote the use of computational modeling in the biological sciences I recently co-edited a theme issue on modeling natural action selection (1).
Selected Bibliography
- Prescott, T. J., Bryson, J. J., Seth, A. (2007). Theme issue on modelling natural action selection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
- Pearson, M. J., Mitchinson, B., Pipe, A. G., Melhuish, C., and Prescott, T. J. (2007). Whiskerbot: A robotic active touch system modelled on the rat whisker sensory system. Adaptive Behavior, 15:223-240.
- Mitchinson, B., Martin, C. J., Grant, R., and Prescott (2007). Feedback control in active sensing: Tactile exploration in the rat is modulated by environmental contact. Proceedings of the Royal Society. B: Biological Sciences, 274(1613), 1035-41.
- Prescott, T. J. (2007). Forced moves or good tricks in design space? Landmarks in the evolution of neural mechanisms for action selection. Adaptive Behavior. 15: 9-31.
- Humphries, M. D., Gurney, K. & Prescott, T. J. (2006). The brainstem reticular formation is a small-world, not scale-free, network. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 273, 503-511.
- Prescott, T. J., Gonzalez, F. M., Gurney, K., Humphries, M. D., & Redgrave, P. (2006). A robot model of the basal ganglia: behavior and intrinsic processing. Neural Networks, 19, 31-61.
- Gurney, K., Prescott, T. J., Wickens, J., and Redgrave, P. (2004). Computational models of the basal ganglia: from membranes to robots. Trends in Neurosciences, 27, 453–459.
- Prescott, T.J., Redgrave, P., & Gurney, K. (1999). Layered control architectures in robots and vertebrates, Adaptive Behavior, 7, 99-127.
- Redgrave, P., Prescott, T.J. and Gurney, K. (1999). The basal ganglia: a vertebrate solution to the selection problem?, Neuroscience, 89, 1009–1023.
