SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 1909.08341

Bifurcation Spiking Neural Network

Abstract

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) has attracted much attention due to its great potential of modeling time-dependent signals. The firing rate of spiking neurons is decided by control rate which is fixed manually in advance, and thus, whether the firing rate is adequate for modeling actual time series relies on fortune. Though it is demanded to have an adaptive control rate, it is a non-trivial task because the control rate and the connection weights learned during the training process are usually entangled. In this paper, we show that the firing rate is related to the eigenvalue of the spike generation function. Inspired by this insight, by enabling the spike generation function to have adaptable eigenvalues rather than parametric control rates, we develop the Bifurcation Spiking Neural Network (BSNN), which has an adaptive firing rate and is insensitive to the setting of control rates. Experiments validate the effectiveness of BSNN on a broad range of tasks, showing that BSNN achieves superior performance to existing SNNs and is robust to the setting of control rates.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Shao-Qun Zhang, Zhao-Yu Zhang, Zhi-Hua Zhou. 2019-09-18. Bifurcation Spiking Neural Network. https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.08341

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Breaking the Central Bias: Spatially Partitioned Experts for Coordinate-Based Neuroevolution

Evolvable-Substrate HyperNEAT (ES-HyperNEAT), a bio-inspired indirect encoding that determines neuron placement and connection weights from spatial coordinates, exhibits a failure mode on MNIST as a diagnostic benchmark. Because input pixels map to a coordinate space centered at the origin, evolved networks converge on a small central cluster of input pixels, a spatial-concentration bias; prior work observed only 21% mean accuracy in this regime. Is this bias an optimization artifact or an architectural ceiling? Inspired by Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) principles, we partition the input into non-overlapping spatial segments, each assigned to a separately evolved specialist network. With 13 such experts, this design reaches 43% mean accuracy, a 106% relative improvement over the baseline. The architectural gain does not depend on data-driven aggregation: equal-weighted averaging, which uses no validation data, already yields a 70% improvement; the gain comes from partitioning, not the weighting. Receptive-field analysis shows the mechanism: partitioning forces evolution to discover features across the entire image, expanding active pixel coverage from 4% to 79%. Absolute accuracy stays below gradient-trained baselines, but the relative gain points to central bias, not the evolutionary search. Two tools are designed to generalize beyond MNIST: a receptive-field diagnostic for silent input-coverage collapse, and a spatial-partitioning remedy that restores coverage.

cs.NE

A Bio-Plausible Visual Neural Network for Locust-Inspired Collision Perception

Locust visual systems have long served as an important biological paradigm for studying looming perception and collision avoidance. Numerous computational models have successfully reproduced the selective responses of Lobula Giant Movement Detector (LGMD) neurons to approaching objects, thereby emulating the fundamental functionality of the biological system. However, existing models remain limited in biological plausibility and robustness when operating in complex and dynamic visual environments. To address these limitations, we propose a biologically plausible neural network for locust-inspired looming detection. The proposed framework incorporates a spatially isotropic sampling strategy that mimics the ommatidial organization of the locust compound eye, a population-voting mechanism inspired by population coding in biological neural systems, and leaky integrate-and-fire neuronal dynamics to replace conventional sigmoid-based membrane activation. Systematic experiments on synthetic stimuli, laboratory sequences, and real-world driving scenarios demonstrate that the proposed model improves robustness under challenging visual conditions while preserving computational efficiency and enhancing biological fidelity. These results highlight the potential of biologically grounded neural computation for robust and efficient collision perception.

cs.NE

Structural Fusion of Bayesian Networks with Limited Treewidth Using Genetic Algorithms

This paper introduces an evolutionary computation approach for consensus in structural Bayesian Network (BN) fusion under the constraint of limited treewidth. The consensus BN aims to reconcile multiple input BNs into a single one that retains key structural features present in the original networks. Treewidth, a graph-based parameter associated with computationally tractable inference, is utilized to restrict the complexity of the resulting network. A genetic algorithm is proposed to look for a BN that codifies as much information about the unrestricted fusion as possible while ensuring the treewidth restriction. Experimental evaluation demonstrates the genetic algorithm's ability to obtain consensus BNs with limited treewidth, providing a valuable tool for aggregating information from diverse sources while returning a computationally actionable model.

cs.NE