Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2501.17266

Advancing the Biological Plausibility and Efficacy of Hebbian Convolutional Neural Networks

Julian Jimenez Nimmo·Esther Mondragon
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The research presented in this paper advances the integration of Hebbian learning into Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image processing, systematically exploring different architectures to build an optimal configuration, adhering to biological tenability. Hebbian learning operates on local unsupervised neural information to form feature representations, providing an alternative to the popular but arguably biologically implausible and computationally intensive backpropagation learning algorithm. The suggested optimal architecture significantly enhances recent research aimed at integrating Hebbian learning with competition mechanisms and CNNs, expanding their representational capabilities by incorporating hard Winner-Takes-All (WTA) competition, Gaussian lateral inhibition mechanisms, and Bienenstock-Cooper-Munro (BCM) learning rule in a single model. Mean accuracy classification measures during the last half of test epochs on CIFAR-10 revealed that the resulting optimal model matched its end-to-end backpropagation variant with 75.2% each, critically surpassing the state-of-the-art hard-WTA performance in CNNs of the same network depth (64.6%) by 10.6%. It also achieved competitive performance on MNIST (98%) and STL-10 (69.5%). Moreover, results showed clear indications of sparse hierarchical learning through increasingly complex and abstract receptive fields. In summary, our implementation enhances both the performance and the generalisability of the learnt representations and constitutes a crucial step towards more biologically realistic artificial neural networks.

Explore related subjects

cs.NEcs.CV

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Julian Jimenez Nimmo, Esther Mondragon. 2025-03-28. Advancing the Biological Plausibility and Efficacy of Hebbian Convolutional Neural Networks. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2025.107628

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Continuous Spiking Graph Neural Networks

Continuous graph neural networks (CGNNs) have garnered significant attention due to their ability to generalize existing discrete graph neural networks (GNNs) by introducing continuous dynamics. They typically draw inspiration from diffusion-based methods to introduce a novel propagation scheme, which is analyzed using ordinary differential equations (ODE). However, the implementation of CGNNs requires significant computational power, making them challenging to deploy on battery-powered devices. Inspired by recent spiking neural networks (SNNs), which emulate a biological inference process and provide an energy-efficient neural architecture, we incorporate the SNNs with CGNNs in a unified framework, named Continuous Spiking Graph Neural Networks (COS-GNN). We employ SNNs for graph node representation at each time step, which are further integrated into the ODE process along with time. To enhance information preservation and mitigate information loss in SNNs, we introduce the high-order structure of COS-GNN, which utilizes the second-order ODE for spiking representation and continuous propagation. Moreover, we provide the theoretical proof that COS-GNN effectively mitigates the issues of exploding and vanishing gradients, enabling us to capture long-range dependencies between nodes. Experimental results on graph-based learning tasks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed COS-GNN over competitive baselines.

cs.NE↗
arXiv2026

Emergent Intelligence: Resonant Oscillators Produce Proactive Adaptive Behavior

Most artificial neural systems are built to map given inputs to outputs. Adaptive agents face a prior problem: they must act without enough evidence, seek encounters with the world, and revise behavior when evidence appears. We propose another starting point for intelligent neural networks: proactive search without signals, curiosity at its most basic. We ask whether it can come from a minimal untrained circuit. The spiking unit studied here inverts its response to input: with no signal in its window it fires faster; once signals arrive it switches to a slower, inverted regime. Search needs three or more such oscillators in counter-phase, each reading the same input in a different time window. With no training, supervision, parameter tuning, or controller, the composite switches on its own between exploratory spiral search and exploitative tracking, finding both first-degree symmetry and second-degree groups. The switch comes from temporal disagreement between its fast and slow readings of the same signal. We view the circuit as evolutionarily trained: its abilities come from structure, not experience. Ablation over 63 configurations and 63,000 trials shows the switch needs both temporal staggering and counter-phase opposition, neither enough alone: the behavior is emergent, not programmed. The spiral persists at zero rotational diffusion, so it is structural, and degrades gently under perturbation. More oscillators improve spiral regularity but cut resource capture, so the smallest sufficient circuit wins. We propose that this principle underlies search in simple organisms, navigation and decisions in complex ones, and, being so simple and common, goes unnoticed unless you strip the logic bare. Eventually, networks of such proactive primitives may offer another foundation for AI architectures that explore our world rather than merely predict the next symbol in a sequence.

cs.NE↗
arXiv2026

A Confidence-Driven Evolutionary Algorithm for Noisy Optimization with Joint Chance Constraints

Many real-world optimization problems involve noisy objective evaluations and probabilistic constraints, particularly in the form of joint chance constraints, which are computationally expensive to evaluate. In this work, we propose CR-EA-C, a confidence-driven evolutionary algorithm for solving noisy black-box optimization problems under joint chance constraints. CR-EA-C introduces three key components: (1) analytical feasibility estimation for joint chance constraints, (2) a pairwise statistical ranking mechanism for robust comparison under noise, and (3) a modified infeasibility-driven survival strategy to accelerate convergence. These components enable statistically reliable decision-making while improving the efficiency of function evaluations. The proposed method is evaluated against four recent metaheuristic algorithms under various uncertainty distributions. Furthermore, its practical effectiveness is also assessed on two additional real-world optimization problems and compared with conventional static sampling methods. Experimental results show that CR-EA-C consistently satisfies the prescribed joint chance constraints while achieving competitive objective values overall. This demonstrates that CR-EA-C is an effective general-purpose approach for noisy optimization.

cs.NE↗