Exploring Self-Repair in a Coupled Spiking Astrocyte Neural Network.

It is now known that astrocytes modulate the activity at the tripartite synapses where indirect signaling via the retrograde messengers, endocannabinoids, leads to a localized self-repairing capability. In this paper, a self-repairing spiking astrocyte neural network (SANN) is proposed to demonstrate a distributed self-repairing capability at the network level. The SANN uses a novel learning rule that combines the spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) and Bienenstock, Cooper, and Munro (BCM) learning rules (hereafter referred to as the BSTDP rule).

ARDebug: An Augmented Reality Tool for Analysing and Debugging Swarm Robotic Systems.

Despite growing interest in collective robotics over the past few years, analysing and debugging the behaviour of swarm robotic systems remains a challenge due to the lack of appropriate tools. We present a solution to this problem-ARDebug: an open-source, cross-platform, and modular tool that allows the user to visualise the internal state of a robot swarm using graphical augmented reality techniques. In this paper we describe the key features of the software, the hardware required to support it, its implementation, and usage examples.

SPANNER: A Self-Repairing Spiking Neural Network Hardware Architecture.

Recent research has shown that a glial cell of astrocyte underpins a self-repair mechanism in the human brain, where spiking neurons provide direct and indirect feedbacks to presynaptic terminals. These feedbacks modulate the synaptic transmission probability of release (PR). When synaptic faults occur, the neuron becomes silent or near silent due to the low PR of synapses; whereby the PRs of remaining healthy synapses are then increased by the indirect feedback from the astrocyte cell.

On the role of astroglial syncytia in self-repairing spiking neural networks.

It has been shown that brain-like self-repair can arise from the interactions between neurons and astrocytes where endocannabinoids are synthesized and released from active neurons. This retrograde messenger feeds back to local synapses directly and indirectly to distant synapses via astrocytes. This direct/indirect feedback of the endocannabinoid retrograde messenger results in the modulation of the probability of release (PR) at synaptic sites.

Silicon-based dynamic synapse with depressing response.

A compact implementation of a dynamic charge transfer synapse cell, capable of implementing synaptic depression, is presented. The cell is combined with a simple current mirror summing node to produce biologically plausible postsynaptic potentials (PSPs). A single charge packet is effectively transferred from the synapse to the summing node, whenever a presynaptic pulse is applied to one of its terminals.

Biologically Inspired SNN for Robot Control.

This paper proposes a spiking-neural-network-based robot controller inspired by the control structures of biological systems. Information is routed through the network using facilitating dynamic synapses with short-term plasticity. Learning occurs through long-term synaptic plasticity which is implemented using the temporal difference learning rule to enable the robot to learn to associate the correct movement with the appropriate input conditions.

Spiking neural network model of sound localization using the interaural intensity difference.

In this paper, a spiking neural network (SNN) architecture to simulate the sound localization ability of the mammalian auditory pathways using the interaural intensity difference cue is presented. The lateral superior olive was the inspiration for the architecture, which required the integration of an auditory periphery (cochlea) model and a model of the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body. The SNN uses leaky integrate-and-fire excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons, facilitating synapses and receptive fields.

Bidirectional coupling between astrocytes and neurons mediates learning and dynamic coordination in the brain: a multiple modeling approach.

In recent years research suggests that astrocyte networks, in addition to nutrient and waste processing functions, regulate both structural and synaptic plasticity. To understand the biological mechanisms that underpin such plasticity requires the development of cell level models that capture the mutual interaction between astrocytes and neurons. This paper presents a detailed model of bidirectional signaling between astrocytes and neurons (the astrocyte-neuron model or AN model) which yields new insights into the computational role of astrocyte-neuronal coupling.

SWAT: a spiking neural network training algorithm for classification problems.

This paper presents a synaptic weight association training (SWAT) algorithm for spiking neural networks (SNNs). SWAT merges the Bienenstock-Cooper-Munro (BCM) learning rule with spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP). The STDP/BCM rule yields a unimodal weight distribution where the height of the plasticity window associated with STDP is modulated causing stability after a period of training.

A spiking neural network model of the medial superior olive using spike timing dependent plasticity for sound localization.

Sound localization can be defined as the ability to identify the position of an input sound source and is considered a powerful aspect of mammalian perception. For low frequency sounds, i.e.