I had a discusion here: http://www.gamecareerguide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23 I think beginners may find it handy.

And interesting news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/technology/6600965.stm I couldn't find what model they've used for the simulation.

IEEE Spectrum this month had an article about Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM). http://www.numenta.com/ The platform is for Linux and Mac and is free, these make that a perfect research platform.