Synapse Timing Sketches

Key

• Black cell: target cell, showing current activation and max activation (fades over time)
• Red cell: source cell, produce action potentials at shown time step (looping)
• Small red circles: action potentials move from source cell to dendrite segment of target (post-synaptic) cell
• Gray circle: learning radius (if active synapse within radius, synapse will translate)
• Green arrow: Direction synapse will move via learning

Notes

• The learning rule visualized here is as follows: when an action potential reaches the target segment, the synapse location moves in the direction of the nearest synapse within its learning radius (if any is present)
• Result: in each scenario visualized, the adjusting synapses stabilize at the configuration that maximizes the resultant activity in the post-synaptic cell. In other words, the post-synaptic cell has 'learned' to respond maximally to a precisely timed sequence of its inputs