SWAN Brains: a novel substrate for evolving and studying bio-inspired neural circuits

We are interested in understanding how cognition can evolve. To this end, we introduce SWAN Brains, a novel evolvable cognitive architecture composed of modular, programmable neurons. These neurons support combinations of biologically inspired and artificial logic, enabling the exploration of both naturalistic and synthetic forms of cognition. SWAN Brains are designed to support the study of neural strategies observed in nature as well as the emergence of novel cognitive mechanisms beyond those found in biology. In this paper, we present the design and motivations behind SWAN Brains, and we showcase case studies in which they evolve to solve tasks involving value comparison, navigation, and memory.