The artificial neural network has the ability of the information processing and storage, good adaptability, strong learning function, association function and fault tolerance function. The research on the artificial neural network is mostly focused on the dynamic properties due to fact that the applications of artificial neural networks are related to its dynamic properties. At present, the researches on the neural network are based on the hierarchical network which can not simulate the real neural network. As a high level of abstraction of real complex systems, the small world network has the properties of biological neural networks. In the study, the small world network was constructed and the optimal parameter of the small word network was chosen based on the complex network theory firstly. And then based on the regulation mechanism of the synaptic plasticity and the topology of the small world network, the small world neural network was constructed and dynamic properties of the neural network were analyzed from the three aspects of the firing properties, dynamic properties of synaptic weights and complex network properties. The experimental results showed that with the increase of the time, the firing patterns of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the small world neural network didn’t change and the firing time of the neurons tended to synchronize; the synaptic weights between the neurons decreased sharply and eventually tended to be steady; the connections in the neural network were weakened and the efficiency of the information transmission was reduced, but the small world attribute was stable. The dynamic properties of the small world neural network vary with time, and the dynamic properties can also interact with each other: the firing synchronization of the neural network can affect the distribution of synaptic weights to the minimum, and then the dynamic changes of the synaptic weights can affect the complex network properties of the small world neural network.
Biological neural networks have dual properties of small-world attributes and scale-free attributes. Most of the current researches on neural networks are based on small-world networks or scale-free networks with lower clustering coefficient, however, the real brain network is a scale-free network with small-world attributes. In this paper, a scale-free spiking neural network with high clustering coefficient and small-world attribute was constructed. The dynamic evolution process was analyzed from three aspects: synaptic regulation process, firing characteristics and complex network characteristics. The experimental results show that, as time goes by, the synaptic strength gradually decreases and tends to be stable. As a result, the connection strength of the network decreases and tends to be stable; the firing rate of neurons gradually decreases and tends to be stable, and the synchronization becomes worse; the local information transmission efficiency is stable, the global information transmission efficiency is reduced and tends to be stable, and the small-world attributes are relatively stable. The dynamic characteristics vary with time and interact with each other. The regulation of synapses is based on the firing time of neurons, and the regulation of synapses will affect the firing of neurons and complex characteristics of networks. In this paper, a scale-free spiking neural network was constructed, which has biological authenticity. It lays a foundation for the research of artificial neural network and its engineering application.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a noninvasive neuromodulation technique can improve the impairment of learning and memory caused by diseases, and the regulation of learning and memory depends on synaptic plasticity. TMS can affect plasticity of brain synaptic. This paper reviews the effects of TMS on synaptic plasticity from two aspects of structural and functional plasticity, and further reveals the mechanism of TMS from synaptic vesicles, neurotransmitters, synaptic associated proteins, brain derived neurotrophic factor and related pathways. Finally, it is found that TMS could affect neuronal morphology, glutamate receptor and neurotransmitter, and regulate the expression of synaptic associated proteins through the expression of brain derived neurotrophic factor, thus affecting the learning and memory function. This paper reviews the effects of TMS on learning, memory and plasticity of brain synaptic, which provides a reference for the study of the mechanism of TMS.
With inherent sparse spike-based coding and asynchronous event-driven computation, spiking neural network (SNN) is naturally suitable for processing event stream data of event cameras. In order to improve the feature extraction and classification performance of bio-inspired hierarchical SNNs, in this paper an event camera object recognition system based on biological synaptic plasticity is proposed. In our system input event streams were firstly segmented adaptively using spiking neuron potential to improve computational efficiency of the system. Multi-layer feature learning and classification are implemented by our bio-inspired hierarchical SNN with synaptic plasticity. After Gabor filter-based event-driven convolution layer which extracted primary visual features of event streams, we used a feature learning layer with unsupervised spiking timing dependent plasticity (STDP) rule to help the network extract frequent salient features, and a feature learning layer with reward-modulated STDP rule to help the network learn diagnostic features. The classification accuracies of the network proposed in this paper on the four benchmark event stream datasets were better than the existing bio-inspired hierarchical SNNs. Moreover, our method showed good classification ability for short event stream input data, and was robust to input event stream noise. The results show that our method can improve the feature extraction and classification performance of this kind of SNNs for event camera object recognition.