BI 041 Brad Aimone: Neurogenesis and Spiking in Deep Nets

In this first part of our discussion, Brad and I discuss the state of neuromorphics and its relation to neuroscience and artificial intelligence.  He describes his work adding new neurons to deep learning networks during training, called neurogenesis deep learning, inspired by how neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus helps learn new things while keeping previous memories intact. We also talk about his method to transform deep learning networks into spiking neural networks so they can run on neuromorphic hardware, and the neuromorphics workshop he puts on every year, the Neuro Inspired Computational Elements (NICE) workshop.

Show Notes:

• Brad’s homepage.
• Follow Brad on Twitter: @jbimaknee.
• The papers we discuss:
  • Computational Influence of Adult Neurogenesis on Memory Encoding.
  • Neurogenesis Deep Learning.
  • Training deep neural networks for binary communication with the Whetstone method.
    • And here’s the arXiv version.
• Check out the Neuro Inspired Computing Elements (NICE) workshop – lots of great talks and panel discussions.