Computing with Spiking Neuron Networks
Résumé
Spiking Neuron Networks (SNNs) are often referred to as the 3rd generation of
neural networks. Highly inspired from natural computing in the brain and
recent advances in neurosciences, they derive their strength and interest from an
accurate modeling of synaptic interactions between neurons, taking into account the
time of spike firing. SNNs overcome the computational power of neural networks
made of threshold or sigmoidal units. Based on dynamic event-driven processing,
they open up new horizons for developing models with an exponential capacity of
memorizing and a strong ability to fast adaptation. Today, the main challenge is to
discover efficient learning rules that might take advantage of the specific features
of SNNs while keeping the nice properties (general-purpose, easy-to-use, available
simulators, etc.) of traditional connectionist models. This chapter relates the
history of the “spiking neuron” in Section 1 and summarizes the most currently-in-use
models of neurons and synaptic plasticity in Section 2. The computational power of
SNNs is addressed in Section 3 and the problem of learning in networks of spiking
neurons is tackled in Section 4, with insights into the tracks currently explored for
solving it. Finally, Section 5 discusses application domains, implementation issues
and proposes several simulation frameworks.