Reservoir computing (RC), first applied to temporal signal processing, is a
recurrent neural network in which neurons are randomly connected. Once
initialized, the connection strengths remain unchanged. Such a simple structure
turns RC into a non-linear dynamical system that maps low-dimensional inputs
into a high-dimensional space. The model's rich dynamics, linear separability,
and memory capacity then enable a simple linear readout to generate adequate
responses for various applications. RC spans areas far beyond machine learning,
since it has been shown that the complex dynamics can be realized in various
physical hardware implementations and biological devices. This yields greater
flexibility and shorter computation time. Moreover, the neuronal responses
triggered by the model's dynamics shed light on understanding brain mechanisms
that also exploit similar dynamical processes. While the literature on RC is
vast and fragmented, here we conduct a unified review of RC's recent
developments from machine learning to physics, biology, and neuroscience. We
first review the early RC models, and then survey the state-of-the-art models
and their applications. We further introduce studies on modeling the brain's
mechanisms by RC. Finally, we offer new perspectives on RC development,
including reservoir design, coding frameworks unification, physical RC
implementations, and interaction between RC, cognitive neuroscience and
evolution.

储备计算（RC）是一种递归神经网络，通过随机连接神经元实现对时间信号处理的应用。该模型具有丰富的动力学、线性可分性和记忆能力，可在各种应用中生成适当的响应。RC 的研究领域涉及机器学习、物理学、生物学和神经科学，可应用于物理硬件和生物设备的复杂动力学实现及对大脑机制的理解。本文对 RC 的发展进行了综合回顾，包括模型、应用和脑机制的建模，并提供了储备设计、编码框架统一、物理实现以及与认知神经科学和进化之间的相互作用等新视角。