Analyzing Internal Activity and Robustness of SNNs Across Neuron Parameter Space

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mazurek, Szymon, Caputa, Jakub, Wielgosz, Maciej
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Mazurek, Szymon
Caputa, Jakub
Wielgosz, Maciej
author_facet Mazurek, Szymon
Caputa, Jakub
Wielgosz, Maciej
contents Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) offer energy-efficient and biologically plausible alternatives to traditional artificial neural networks, but their performance depends critically on the tuning of neuron model parameters. In this work, we identify and characterize an operational space - a constrained region in the neuron hyperparameter domain (specifically membrane time constant tau and voltage threshold vth) - within which the network exhibits meaningful activity and functional behavior. Operating inside this manifold yields optimal trade-offs between classification accuracy and spiking activity, while stepping outside leads to degeneration: either excessive energy use or complete network silence. Through systematic exploration across datasets and architectures, we visualize and quantify this manifold and identify efficient operating points. We further assess robustness to adversarial noise, showing that SNNs exhibit increased spike correlation and internal synchrony when operating outside their optimal region. These findings highlight the importance of principled hyperparameter tuning to ensure both task performance and energy efficiency. Our results offer practical guidelines for deploying robust and efficient SNNs, particularly in neuromorphic computing scenarios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_14757
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Analyzing Internal Activity and Robustness of SNNs Across Neuron Parameter Space
Mazurek, Szymon
Caputa, Jakub
Wielgosz, Maciej
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) offer energy-efficient and biologically plausible alternatives to traditional artificial neural networks, but their performance depends critically on the tuning of neuron model parameters. In this work, we identify and characterize an operational space - a constrained region in the neuron hyperparameter domain (specifically membrane time constant tau and voltage threshold vth) - within which the network exhibits meaningful activity and functional behavior. Operating inside this manifold yields optimal trade-offs between classification accuracy and spiking activity, while stepping outside leads to degeneration: either excessive energy use or complete network silence. Through systematic exploration across datasets and architectures, we visualize and quantify this manifold and identify efficient operating points. We further assess robustness to adversarial noise, showing that SNNs exhibit increased spike correlation and internal synchrony when operating outside their optimal region. These findings highlight the importance of principled hyperparameter tuning to ensure both task performance and energy efficiency. Our results offer practical guidelines for deploying robust and efficient SNNs, particularly in neuromorphic computing scenarios.
title Analyzing Internal Activity and Robustness of SNNs Across Neuron Parameter Space
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14757