scholarly journals Biological modelling of a computational spiking neural network with neuronal avalanches

2017 ◽  
Vol 375 (2096) ◽  
pp. 20160286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiumin Li ◽  
Qing Chen ◽  
Fangzheng Xue
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Critical State ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Mathematical Methods ◽  
Computational Accuracy ◽  
Active Neuron ◽  
Computational Performance ◽  
Neuronal Avalanches

In recent years, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that networks in the brain can self-organize into a critical state where dynamics exhibit a mixture of ordered and disordered patterns. This critical branching phenomenon is termed neuronal avalanches. It has been hypothesized that the homeostatic level balanced between stability and plasticity of this critical state may be the optimal state for performing diverse neural computational tasks. However, the critical region for high performance is narrow and sensitive for spiking neural networks (SNNs). In this paper, we investigated the role of the critical state in neural computations based on liquid-state machines, a biologically plausible computational neural network model for real-time computing. The computational performance of an SNN when operating at the critical state and, in particular, with spike-timing-dependent plasticity for updating synaptic weights is investigated. The network is found to show the best computational performance when it is subjected to critical dynamic states. Moreover, the active-neuron-dominant structure refined from synaptic learning can remarkably enhance the robustness of the critical state and further improve computational accuracy. These results may have important implications in the modelling of spiking neural networks with optimal computational performance. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Mathematical methods in medicine: neuroscience, cardiology and pathology’.

Neuromorphic Functional Modules of Spiking Neural Network

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 317-326
Author(s):  
E.A. Ryndin ◽  
◽  
N.V. Andreeva ◽  
V.V. Luchinin ◽  
K.S. Goncharov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Artificial Neural Networks ◽  
Synaptic Plasticity ◽  
Data Processing ◽  
Circuit Design ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Spiking Neural Network ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Artificial Neural

In the current era, design and development of artificial neural networks exploiting the architecture of the human brain have evolved rapidly. Artificial neural networks effectively solve a wide range of common for artificial intelligence tasks involving data classification and recognition, prediction, forecasting and adaptive control of object behavior. Biologically inspired underlying principles of ANN operation have certain advantages over the conventional von Neumann architecture including unsupervised learning, architectural flexibility and adaptability to environmental change and high performance under significantly reduced power consumption due to heavy parallel and asynchronous data processing. In this paper, we present the circuit design of main functional blocks (neurons and synapses) intended for hardware implementation of a perceptron-based feedforward spiking neural network. As the third generation of artificial neural networks, spiking neural networks perform data processing utilizing spikes, which are discrete events (or functions) that take place at points in time. Neurons in spiking neural networks initiate precisely timing spikes and communicate with each other via spikes transmitted through synaptic connections or synapses with adaptable scalable weight. One of the prospective approach to emulate the synaptic behavior in hardware implemented spiking neural networks is to use non-volatile memory devices with analog conduction modulation (or memristive structures). Here we propose a circuit design for functional analogues of memristive structure to mimic a synaptic plasticity, pre- and postsynaptic neurons which could be used for developing circuit design of spiking neural network architectures with different training algorithms including spike-timing dependent plasticity learning rule. Two different circuits of electronic synapse were developed. The first one is an analog synapse with photoresistive optocoupler used to ensure the tunable conductivity for synaptic plasticity emulation. While the second one is a digital synapse, in which the synaptic weight is stored in a digital code with its direct conversion into conductivity (without digital-to-analog converter andphotoresistive optocoupler). The results of the prototyping of developed circuits for electronic analogues of synapses, pre- and postsynaptic neurons and the study of transient processes are presented. The developed approach could provide a basis for ASIC design of spiking neural networks based on CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) design technology.

scholarly journals Biologically Plausible Sequence Learning with Spiking Neural Networks

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (02) ◽  
pp. 1316-1323
Author(s):  
Zuozhu Liu ◽  
Thiparat Chotibut ◽  
Christopher Hillar ◽  
Shaowei Lin
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Nervous Activity ◽  
Learning Rule ◽  
Generative Models ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Hopfield Network ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Theoretical Ground ◽  
Time Model

Motivated by the celebrated discrete-time model of nervous activity outlined by McCulloch and Pitts in 1943, we propose a novel continuous-time model, the McCulloch-Pitts network (MPN), for sequence learning in spiking neural networks. Our model has a local learning rule, such that the synaptic weight updates depend only on the information directly accessible by the synapse. By exploiting asymmetry in the connections between binary neurons, we show that MPN can be trained to robustly memorize multiple spatiotemporal patterns of binary vectors, generalizing the ability of the symmetric Hopfield network to memorize static spatial patterns. In addition, we demonstrate that the model can efficiently learn sequences of binary pictures as well as generative models for experimental neural spike-train data. Our learning rule is consistent with spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), thus providing a theoretical ground for the systematic design of biologically inspired networks with large and robust long-range sequence storage capacity.

Neural Autopoiesis: Organizing Self-Boundaries by Stimulus Avoidance in Biological and Artificial Neural Networks

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsushi Masumori ◽  
Lana Sinapayen ◽  
Norihiro Maruyama ◽  
Takeshi Mita ◽  
Douglas Bakkum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Artificial Neural Networks ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Cultured Neurons ◽  
Autonomous Regulation ◽  
Artificial Neural ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
External Stimuli

Living organisms must actively maintain themselves in order to continue existing. Autopoiesis is a key concept in the study of living organisms, where the boundaries of the organism are not static but dynamically regulated by the system itself. To study the autonomous regulation of a self-boundary, we focus on neural homeodynamic responses to environmental changes using both biological and artificial neural networks. Previous studies showed that embodied cultured neural networks and spiking neural networks with spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) learn an action as they avoid stimulation from outside. In this article, as a result of our experiments using embodied cultured neurons, we find that there is also a second property allowing the network to avoid stimulation: If the agent cannot learn an action to avoid the external stimuli, it tends to decrease the stimulus-evoked spikes, as if to ignore the uncontrollable input. We also show such a behavior is reproduced by spiking neural networks with asymmetric STDP. We consider that these properties are to be regarded as autonomous regulation of self and nonself for the network, in which a controllable neuron is regarded as self, and an uncontrollable neuron is regarded as nonself. Finally, we introduce neural autopoiesis by proposing the principle of stimulus avoidance.

scholarly journals Memristive Spiking Neural Networks Trained with Unsupervised STDP

Electronics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Errui Zhou ◽  
Liang Fang ◽  
Binbin Yang
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Feature Learning ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Learning Method ◽  
Hardware Complexity ◽  
Neuromorphic Computing ◽  
Computing Systems ◽  
Von Neumann ◽  
Complex Architectures

Neuromorphic computing systems are promising alternatives in the fields of pattern recognition, image processing, etc. especially when conventional von Neumann architectures face several bottlenecks. Memristors play vital roles in neuromorphic computing systems and are usually used as synaptic devices. Memristive spiking neural networks (MSNNs) are considered to be more efficient and biologically plausible than other systems due to their spike-based working mechanism. In contrast to previous SNNs with complex architectures, we propose a hardware-friendly architecture and an unsupervised spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) learning method for MSNNs in this paper. The architecture, which is friendly to hardware implementation, includes an input layer, a feature learning layer and a voting circuit. To reduce hardware complexity, some constraints are enforced: the proposed architecture has no lateral inhibition and is purely feedforward; it uses the voting circuit as a classifier and does not use additional classifiers; all neurons can generate at most one spike and do not need to consider firing rates and refractory periods; all neurons have the same fixed threshold voltage for classification. The presented unsupervised STDP learning method is time-dependent and uses no homeostatic mechanism. The MNIST dataset is used to demonstrate our proposed architecture and learning method. Simulation results show that our proposed architecture with the learning method achieves a classification accuracy of 94.6%, which outperforms other unsupervised SNNs that use time-based encoding schemes.

scholarly journals Deep Convolutional Spiking Neural Networks for Image Classification

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruthvik Vaila
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Artificial Neural Networks ◽  
Gradient Descent ◽  
Stochastic Gradient ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Stochastic Gradient Descent ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Learning Capabilities ◽  
Artificial Neural

Spiking neural networks are biologically plausible counterparts of artificial neural networks. Artificial neural networks are usually trained with stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and spiking neural networks are trained with bioinspired spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP). Spiking networks could potentially help in reducing power usage owing to their binary activations. In this work, we use unsupervised STDP in the feature extraction layers of a neural network with instantaneous neurons to extract meaningful features. The extracted binary feature vectors are then classified using classification layers containing neurons with binary activations. Gradient descent (backpropagation) is used only on the output layer to perform training for classification. Surrogate gradients are proposed to perform backpropagation with binary gradients. The accuracies obtained for MNIST and the balanced EMNIST data set compare favorably with other approaches. The effect of the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) approximations on learning capabilities of our network are also explored. We also studied catastrophic forgetting and its effect on spiking neural networks (SNNs). For the experiments regarding catastrophic forgetting, in the classification sections of the network we use a modified synaptic intelligence that we refer to as cost per synapse metric as a regularizer to immunize the network against catastrophic forgetting in a Single-Incremental-Task scenario (SIT). In catastrophic forgetting experiments, we use MNIST and EMNIST handwritten digits datasets that were divided into five and ten incremental subtasks respectively. We also examine behavior of the spiking neural network and empirically study the effect of various hyperparameters on its learning capabilities using the software tool SPYKEFLOW that we developed. We employ MNIST, EMNIST and NMNIST data sets to produce our results.

scholarly journals EDHA: Event-Driven High Accurate Simulator for Spike Neural Networks

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (18) ◽  
pp. 2281
Author(s):  
Lingfei Mo ◽  
Xinao Chen ◽  
Gang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Time Slice ◽  
Computational Accuracy ◽  
Low Power Computing ◽  
Event Driven ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Encoding Method

In recent years, spiking neural networks (SNNs) have attracted increasingly more researchers to study by virtue of its bio-interpretability and low-power computing. The SNN simulator is an essential tool to accomplish image classification, recognition, speech recognition, and other tasks using SNN. However, most of the existing simulators for spike neural networks are clock-driven, which has two main problems. First, the calculation result is affected by time slice, which obviously shows that when the calculation accuracy is low, the calculation speed is fast, but when the calculation accuracy is high, the calculation speed is unacceptable. The other is the failure of lateral inhibition, which severely affects SNN learning. In order to solve these problems, an event-driven high accurate simulator named EDHA (Event-Driven High Accuracy) for spike neural networks is proposed in this paper. EDHA takes full advantage of the event-driven characteristics of SNN and only calculates when a spike is generated, which is independent of the time slice. Compared with previous SNN simulators, EDHA is completely event-driven, which reduces a large amount of calculations and achieves higher computational accuracy. The calculation speed of EDHA in the MNIST classification task is more than 10 times faster than that of mainstream clock-driven simulators. By optimizing the spike encoding method, the former can even achieve more than 100 times faster than the latter. Due to the cross-platform characteristics of Java, EDHA can run on x86, amd64, ARM, and other platforms that support Java.

scholarly journals LogicSNN: A Unified Spiking Neural Networks Logical Operation Paradigm

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (17) ◽  
pp. 2123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingfei Mo ◽  
Minghao Wang
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Logical Operation ◽  
Large Scale Network ◽  
Learning Capabilities ◽  
Scale Network

LogicSNN, a unified spiking neural networks (SNN) logical operation paradigm is proposed in this paper. First, we define the logical variables under the semantics of SNN. Then, we design the network structure of this paradigm and use spike-timing-dependent plasticity for training. According to this paradigm, six kinds of basic SNN binary logical operation modules and three kinds of combined logical networks based on these basic modules are implemented. Through these experiments, the rationality, cascading characteristics and the potential of building large-scale network of this paradigm are verified. This study fills in the blanks of the logical operation of SNN and provides a possible way to realize more complex machine learning capabilities.

scholarly journals Pattern Recognition of Spiking Neural Networks Based on Visual Mechanism and Supervised Synaptic Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Xiumin Li ◽  
Hao Yi ◽  
Shengyuan Luo
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Image Classification ◽  
Learning Rule ◽  
Spiking Neural Networks ◽  
Layer By Layer ◽  
Intelligent Computing ◽  
Training Samples ◽  
Feed Forward Network

Electrophysiological studies have shown that mammalian primary visual cortex are selective for the orientations of visual stimuli. Inspired by this mechanism, we propose a hierarchical spiking neural network (SNN) for image classification. Grayscale input images are fed through a feed-forward network consisting of orientation-selective neurons, which then projected to a layer of downstream classifier neurons through the spiking-based supervised tempotron learning rule. Based on the orientation-selective mechanism of the visual cortex and tempotron learning rule, the network can effectively classify images of the extensively studied MNIST database of handwritten digits, which achieves 96 % classification accuracy based on only 2000 training samples (traditional training set is 60000 ). Compared with other classification methods, our model not only guarantees the biological plausibility and the accuracy of image classification but also significantly reduces the needed training samples. Considering the fact that the most commonly used deep learning neural networks need big data samples and high power consumption in image recognition, this brain-inspired computational neural network model based on the layer-by-layer hierarchical image processing mechanism of the visual cortex may provide a basis for the wide application of spiking neural networks in the field of intelligent computing.

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