523 research outputs found

    An analog CMOS chip set for neural networks with arbitrary topologies

    Get PDF

    A Neuron- and a Synapse Chip for Artificial Neural Networks

    Get PDF

    Characterization and Compensation of Network-Level Anomalies in Mixed-Signal Neuromorphic Modeling Platforms

    Full text link
    Advancing the size and complexity of neural network models leads to an ever increasing demand for computational resources for their simulation. Neuromorphic devices offer a number of advantages over conventional computing architectures, such as high emulation speed or low power consumption, but this usually comes at the price of reduced configurability and precision. In this article, we investigate the consequences of several such factors that are common to neuromorphic devices, more specifically limited hardware resources, limited parameter configurability and parameter variations. Our final aim is to provide an array of methods for coping with such inevitable distortion mechanisms. As a platform for testing our proposed strategies, we use an executable system specification (ESS) of the BrainScaleS neuromorphic system, which has been designed as a universal emulation back-end for neuroscientific modeling. We address the most essential limitations of this device in detail and study their effects on three prototypical benchmark network models within a well-defined, systematic workflow. For each network model, we start by defining quantifiable functionality measures by which we then assess the effects of typical hardware-specific distortion mechanisms, both in idealized software simulations and on the ESS. For those effects that cause unacceptable deviations from the original network dynamics, we suggest generic compensation mechanisms and demonstrate their effectiveness. Both the suggested workflow and the investigated compensation mechanisms are largely back-end independent and do not require additional hardware configurability beyond the one required to emulate the benchmark networks in the first place. We hereby provide a generic methodological environment for configurable neuromorphic devices that are targeted at emulating large-scale, functional neural networks

    Simulation of networks of spiking neurons: A review of tools and strategies

    Full text link
    We review different aspects of the simulation of spiking neural networks. We start by reviewing the different types of simulation strategies and algorithms that are currently implemented. We next review the precision of those simulation strategies, in particular in cases where plasticity depends on the exact timing of the spikes. We overview different simulators and simulation environments presently available (restricted to those freely available, open source and documented). For each simulation tool, its advantages and pitfalls are reviewed, with an aim to allow the reader to identify which simulator is appropriate for a given task. Finally, we provide a series of benchmark simulations of different types of networks of spiking neurons, including Hodgkin-Huxley type, integrate-and-fire models, interacting with current-based or conductance-based synapses, using clock-driven or event-driven integration strategies. The same set of models are implemented on the different simulators, and the codes are made available. The ultimate goal of this review is to provide a resource to facilitate identifying the appropriate integration strategy and simulation tool to use for a given modeling problem related to spiking neural networks.Comment: 49 pages, 24 figures, 1 table; review article, Journal of Computational Neuroscience, in press (2007

    A Novel Model-Free Data Analysis Technique Based on Clustering in a Mutual Information Space: Application to Resting-State fMRI

    Get PDF
    Non-parametric data-driven analysis techniques can be used to study datasets with few assumptions about the data and underlying experiment. Variations of independent component analysis (ICA) have been the methods mostly used on fMRI data, e.g., in finding resting-state networks thought to reflect the connectivity of the brain. Here we present a novel data analysis technique and demonstrate it on resting-state fMRI data. It is a generic method with few underlying assumptions about the data. The results are built from the statistical relations between all input voxels, resulting in a whole-brain analysis on a voxel level. It has good scalability properties and the parallel implementation is capable of handling large datasets and databases. From the mutual information between the activities of the voxels over time, a distance matrix is created for all voxels in the input space. Multidimensional scaling is used to put the voxels in a lower-dimensional space reflecting the dependency relations based on the distance matrix. By performing clustering in this space we can find the strong statistical regularities in the data, which for the resting-state data turns out to be the resting-state networks. The decomposition is performed in the last step of the algorithm and is computationally simple. This opens up for rapid analysis and visualization of the data on different spatial levels, as well as automatically finding a suitable number of decomposition components

    Large-Scale Modeling – a Tool for Conquering the Complexity of the Brain

    Get PDF
    Is there any hope of achieving a thorough understanding of higher functions such as perception, memory, thought and emotion or is the stunning complexity of the brain a barrier which will limit such efforts for the foreseeable future? In this perspective we discuss methods to handle complexity, approaches to model building, and point to detailed large-scale models as a new contribution to the toolbox of the computational neuroscientist. We elucidate some aspects which distinguishes large-scale models and some of the technological challenges which they entail

    Hebbian fast plasticity and working memory

    Full text link
    Theories and models of working memory (WM) were at least since the mid-1990s dominated by the persistent activity hypothesis. The past decade has seen rising concerns about the shortcomings of sustained activity as the mechanism for short-term maintenance of WM information in the light of accumulating experimental evidence for so-called activity-silent WM and the fundamental difficulty in explaining robust multi-item WM. In consequence, alternative theories are now explored mostly in the direction of fast synaptic plasticity as the underlying mechanism.The question of non-Hebbian vs Hebbian synaptic plasticity emerges naturally in this context. In this review we focus on fast Hebbian plasticity and trace the origins of WM theories and models building on this form of associative learning.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, 1 box, submitte
    corecore