Credit: Salk Institute LA JOLLA--(December 16, 2020) Getting computers to "think" like humans is the holy grail of artificial intelligence, but human brains turn out to be tough acts to follow. The human brain is a master of applying previously learned knowledge to new situations and constantly refining what's been learned. This ability to be adaptive has been hard to replicate in machines. Now, Salk researchers have used a computational model of brain activity to simulate this process more accurately than ever before. The new model mimics how the brain's prefrontal cortex uses a phenomenon known as "gating" to control the flow of information between different areas of neurons. It not only sheds light on the human brain, but could also inform the design of new artificial intelligence programs.