A quick overview of LOCEN-ISTC-CNR theoretical analyses and system-level computational models of brain: from motivations to actions

The goal of this brief document is to give a focussed overview of the theoretical neuroscience and computational modelling work carried out by the Research Group Laboratory of Computational Embodied Neuroscience of the ISTC-CNR (http://www.istc.cnr.it/group/locen). The overview focusses on the work of LOCEN directed to understand the system-level overall brain organisation that allows organisms, in particular primates, to accomplish multiple motor behaviours sub-serving multiple needs, and on how such behaviors are acquired through learning processes. This involves some hot topics of current cognitive science, in particular: (a) the organisation of motivational systems at the basis of the learning and selection of motor behaviours; (b) the goal-directed/habitual hierarchical organisation of behaviour.