Multi-agent reinforcement learning has shown promise on a variety of cooperative tasks as a consequence of recent developments in differentiable inter-agent communication. However, most architectures are limited to pools of homogeneous agents, limiting their applicability. Here we propose a modular framework for learning complex tasks in which a traditional monolithic agent is framed as a collection of cooperating heterogeneous agents. We apply this approach to model sensorimotor coordination in the neocortex as a multi-agent reinforcement learning problem. Our results demonstrate proof-of-concept of the proposed architecture and open new avenues for learning complex tasks and for understanding functional localization in the brain and future intelligent systems.
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