On training spiking neural networks by means of a novel quantum inspired
machine learning method
Abstract
In spite of the high potential shown by spiking neural networks (e.g.,
temporal patterns), training them remains an open and complex problem
[1]. In practice, while in theory these networks are computationally
as powerful as mainstream artificial neural networks [2], they have
not reached the same accuracy levels yet. The major reason for such
situation seems to be represented by the lack of adequate training
algorithms for deep spiking neural networks, since spike signals are not
differentiable, i.e. no direct way to compute a gradient is provided.
Recently a novel training method, based on the (digital) simulation of
certain quantum systems, has been suggested. It has already shown
interesting advantages, among which the fact that no gradient is
required to be computed. In this work, we apply this approach to the
problem of training spiking neural networks and we show that this recent
training method is capable of training deep and complex spiking neural
networks on the MNIST data set.