Topic: exact gradients

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) inherently rely on the timing of signals for representing and processing information. Transmission delays play an important role in shaping these temporal characteristics. Recent work [1, 2] has demonstrated the substantial advantages of learning these delays along with synaptic weights, both in terms of accuracy and memory efficiency. However, these approaches suffer from drawbacks in terms of precision and learning efficiency, as they operate in discrete time and with approximate gradients, while also requiring membrane potential recordings for calculating para

The ability to train spiking neural network models is essential for the modeling of biological neural networks as well as for neuromorphic computing. The standard approach when training non-spiking neural networks is gradient descent. In spiking neural networks, however, gradient descent learning is complicated by the all-or-none character of spikes (Fig. A). It can lead to unexpected (dis-)appearances of spikes during training, resulting in disruptive, discontinuous changes in the network dynamics [1]. Further, it seemingly prohibits exact gradients to systematically generate or remove spikes