Advances in Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems

First paragraph: This special issue focuses on recent advancements in the field of brain-inspired cognitive systems. It comprises 18 articles which are carefully selected, significantly revised versions of papers presented at the seventh International Conference on Brain-Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2015) held at Hefei, China, on December 11–13, 2015. The aim of BICS 2015 was to bring together leading scientists, engineers, and educators who use analytic, syntactic, and computational methods both to understand the prodigious processing properties of biological systems and, specifically, of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance computational methods toward higher levels of cognitive competence. The conference featured plenary speeches given by renowned scholars and a range of technical sessions focusing on timely topics of interest to the scientific community