Spiking neural networks are nature's versatile solution to fault-tolerant and
energy efficient signal processing. To translate these benefits into hardware,
a growing number of neuromorphic spiking neural network processors attempt to
emulate biological neural networks. These developments have created an imminent
need for methods and tools to enable such systems to solve real-world signal
processing problems. Like conventional neural networks, spiking neural networks
can be trained on real, domain specific data. However, their training requires
overcoming a number of challenges linked to their binary and dynamical nature.
This article elucidates step-by-step the problems typically encountered when
training spiking neural networks, and guides the reader through the key
concepts of synaptic plasticity and data-driven learning in the spiking
setting. To that end, it gives an overview of existing approaches and provides
an introduction to surrogate gradient methods, specifically, as a particularly
flexible and efficient method to overcome the aforementioned challenges
