Fast and Accurate Classification with a Multi-Spike Learning Algorithm for Spiking Neurons

Fast and Accurate Classification with a Multi-Spike Learning Algorithm for Spiking Neurons

Rong Xiao, Qiang Yu, Rui Yan, Huajin Tang

Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Main track. Pages 1445-1451. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2019/200

The formulation of efficient supervised learning algorithms for spiking neurons is complicated and remains challenging. Most existing learning methods with the precisely firing times of spikes often result in relatively low efficiency and poor robustness to noise. To address these limitations, we propose a simple and effective multi-spike learning rule to train neurons to match their output spike number with a desired one. The proposed method will quickly find a local maximum value (directly related to the embedded feature) as the relevant signal for synaptic updates based on membrane potential trace of a neuron, and constructs an error function defined as the difference between the local maximum membrane potential and the firing threshold. With the presented rule, a single neuron can be trained to learn multi-category tasks, and can successfully mitigate the impact of the input noise and discover embedded features. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm has higher precision, lower computation cost, and better noise robustness than current state-of-the-art learning methods under a wide range of learning tasks.
Keywords:
Humans and AI: Cognitive Modeling