The Brain

In animals the brain is the main centre of information processing and in invertebrates it sits at the top or forward end of the spine through which it is effectively extended as the spinal cord. The spinal cord is not simply a trunk line of nerves connecting the brain with the rest of the body, it in fact contains many important automatic (autonomic) functions which allow the main body functions to operate even if the brain looses contact with them. For example a severed spinal cord generally results in paralysis of the person below the break but their body can otherwise still function relatively normally.

In robots the brain is often a digital computer main frame or maybe a PC or even one of the small self-contained microprocessor controllers now available. This is usually connected direct to the functions with no downstream processing power available, that is until the concept of Subsumption Architecture was expounded by Rodney Brooks of the MIT AI lab. Here the idea is to have small controllers widely distributed doing the local automatic controlling with task orientated supervision by the main number cruncher.