On Similarity Measures for Spike Trains

EDHA: Event-Driven High Accurate Simulator for Spike Neural Networks

In recent years, spiking neural networks (SNNs) have attracted increasingly more researchers to study by virtue of its bio-interpretability and low-power computing. The SNN simulator is an essential tool to accomplish image classification, recognition, speech recognition, and other tasks using SNN. However, most of the existing simulators for spike neural networks are clock-driven, which has two main problems. First, the calculation result is affected by time slice, which obviously shows that when the calculation accuracy is low, the calculation speed is fast, but when the calculation accuracy is high, the calculation speed is unacceptable. The other is the failure of lateral inhibition, which severely affects SNN learning. In order to solve these problems, an event-driven high accurate simulator named EDHA (Event-Driven High Accuracy) for spike neural networks is proposed in this paper. EDHA takes full advantage of the event-driven characteristics of SNN and only calculates when a spike is generated, which is independent of the time slice. Compared with previous SNN simulators, EDHA is completely event-driven, which reduces a large amount of calculations and achieves higher computational accuracy. The calculation speed of EDHA in the MNIST classification task is more than 10 times faster than that of mainstream clock-driven simulators. By optimizing the spike encoding method, the former can even achieve more than 100 times faster than the latter. Due to the cross-platform characteristics of Java, EDHA can run on x86, amd64, ARM, and other platforms that support Java.

Distortion Distribution of Neural Spike Train Sequence Matching With Optogenetics

OBJECTIVE

This paper uses a simple optogenetic model to compare the timing distortion between a randomly-generated target spike sequence and an externally-stimulated neuron spike sequence. Optogenetics is an emerging field of neuroscience where neurons are genetically modified to express light-sensitive receptors that enable external control when the neurons fire.

METHODS

Two different measures are studied to determine the timing distortion. The first measure is the delay in externally-stimulated spikes. The second measure is the root-mean-square-error between the filtered outputs of the target and stimulated spike sequences.

RESULTS

The mean and the distribution of the distortion are derived in closed form when the target sequence generation rate is sufficiently low. The derived results are verified with simulations.

CONCLUSION

The proposed model and distortion measures can be used to measure the deviation between neuron spike sequences that are prescribed and what can be achieved via external stimulation.

SIGNIFICANCE

Given the prominence of neuronal signaling within the brain and throughout the body, optogenetics has significant potential to improve the understanding of the nervous system and to develop treatments for neurological diseases. This work is a step towards an analytical model to predict whether different spike trains were observed from the same external stimulus, and the broader goal of understanding the quantity and reliability of information that can be carried by neurons.

Multineuron spike train analysis with R-convolution linear combination kernel

A spike train kernel provides an effective way of decoding information represented by a spike train. Some spike train kernels have been extended to multineuron spike trains, which are simultaneously recorded spike trains obtained from multiple neurons. However, most of these multineuron extensions were carried out in a kernel-specific manner. In this paper, a general framework is proposed for extending any single-neuron spike train kernel to multineuron spike trains, based on the R-convolution kernel. Special subclasses of the proposed R-convolution linear combination kernel are explored. These subclasses have a smaller number of parameters and make optimization tractable when the size of data is limited. The proposed kernel was evaluated using Gaussian process regression for multineuron spike trains recorded from an animal brain. It was compared with the sum kernel and the population Spikernel, which are existing ways of decoding multineuron spike trains using kernels. The results showed that the proposed approach performs better than these kernels and also other commonly used neural decoding methods.

Mapping Temporal Variables Into the NeuCube for Improved Pattern Recognition, Predictive Modeling, and Understanding of Stream Data

This paper proposes a new method for an optimized mapping of temporal variables, describing a temporal stream data, into the recently proposed NeuCube spiking neural network (SNN) architecture. This optimized mapping extends the use of the NeuCube, which was initially designed for spatiotemporal brain data, to work on arbitrary stream data and to achieve a better accuracy of temporal pattern recognition, a better and earlier event prediction, and a better understanding of complex temporal stream data through visualization of the NeuCube connectivity. The effect of the new mapping is demonstrated on three benchmark problems. The first one is the early prediction of patient sleep stage event from temporal physiological data. The second one is the pattern recognition of dynamic temporal patterns of traffic in the Bay Area of California and the last one is the Challenge 2012 contest data set. In all the cases, the use of the proposed mapping leads to an improved accuracy of pattern recognition and event prediction and a better understanding of the data when compared with traditional machine learning techniques or SNN reservoirs with an arbitrary mapping of the variables.

Kernel Analysis for Estimating the Connectivity of a Network with Event Sequences

Estimating the connectivity of a network from events observed at each node has many applications. One prominent example is found in neuroscience, where spike trains (sequences of action potentials) are observed at each neuron, but the way in which these neurons are connected is unknown. This paper introduces a novel method for estimating connections between nodes using a similarity measure between sequences of event times. Specifically, a normalized positive definite kernel defined on spike trains was used. The proposed method was evaluated using synthetic and real data, by comparing with methods using transfer entropy and the Victor-Purpura distance. Synthetic data was generated using CERM (Coupled Escape-Rate Model), a model that generates various spike trains. Real data recorded from the visual cortex of an anaesthetized cat was analyzed as well. The results showed that the proposed method provides an effective way of estimating the connectivity of a network when the time sequences of events are the only available information.

Biologically inspired load balancing mechanism in neocortical competitive learning

A unique delayed self-inhibitory pathway mediated by layer 5 Martinotti Cells was studied in a biologically inspired neural network simulation. Inclusion of this pathway along with layer 5 basket cell lateral inhibition caused balanced competitive learning, which led to the formation of neuronal clusters as were indeed reported in the same region. Martinotti pathway proves to act as a learning “conscience,” causing overly successful regions in the network to restrict themselves and let others fire. It thus spreads connectivity more evenly throughout the net and solves the “dead unit” problem of clustering algorithms in a local and biologically plausible manner.

A new class of metrics for spike trains

The distance between a pair of spike trains, quantifying the differences between them, can be measured using various metrics. Here we introduce a new class of spike train metrics, inspired by the Pompeiu-Hausdorff distance, and compare them with existing metrics. Some of our new metrics (the modulus-metric and the max-metric) have characteristics that are qualitatively different from those of classical metrics like the van Rossum distance or the Victor and Purpura distance. The modulus-metric and the max-metric are particularly suitable for measuring distances between spike trains where information is encoded in bursts, but the number and the timing of spikes inside a burst do not carry information. The modulus-metric does not depend on any parameters and can be computed using a fast algorithm whose time depends linearly on the number of spikes in the two spike trains. We also introduce localized versions of the new metrics, which could have the biologically relevant interpretation of measuring the differences between spike trains as they are perceived at a particular moment in time by a neuron receiving these spike trains.