ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that algorithms inspired by the brain can be used as tools for computer-based analysis of bioinformatics data sets and explores different theories about how the brain processes information. It focuses on the role of temporal coding in three model systems that have been particularly well described, both experimentally and computationally — vision, olfaction, and hippocampal memory systems — focusing especially on those aspects potentially most useful for bioinformatics. The chapter examines how lessons learned from these models can be used to build tools for processing bioinformatics data. Evidence from auditory and visual systems indicates that the brain makes use of this temporal precision. Temporal patterning in the olfactory system has a similar function in the visual system. Synchronous oscillations in the visual cortex serve as a mechanism for linking the activity of neurons responding to different aspects of the same stimulus.
