If you haven't seen it already, the work of Grossberg and Hawkins might be suitable for this kind of research. These two researchers are perhaps the most influential in my understanding of intelligence.
Here is a representative sample of their work but major works stretch back decades.
Why Neurons Have Thousands of Synapses, a Theory of Sequence Memory in Neocortex, Hawkins, doi:10.3389/fncir.2016.00023
Towards solving the hard problem of consciousness: The varieties of brain resonances and the conscious experiences that they support, Grossberg, doi:10.1016/j.neunet.2016.11.003
A Framework for Intelligence and Cortical Function Based on Grid Cells in the Neocortex, Hawkins, doi:10.1101/442418
A half century of progress towards a unified neural theory of mind and brain with applications to autonomous adaptive agents and mental disorders, Grossberg, ISBN:978-0-12-815480-9
If you haven't seen it already, the work of Grossberg and Hawkins might be suitable for this kind of research. These two researchers are perhaps the most influential in my understanding of intelligence.
Here is a representative sample of their work but major works stretch back decades.