Detecting Invariant Manifolds in ReLU-Based RNNs

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Eisenmann, Lukas, Brändle, Alena, Monfared, Zahra, Durstewitz, Daniel
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Eisenmann, Lukas
Brändle, Alena
Monfared, Zahra
Durstewitz, Daniel
author_facet Eisenmann, Lukas
Brändle, Alena
Monfared, Zahra
Durstewitz, Daniel
contents Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have found widespread applications in machine learning for time series prediction and dynamical systems reconstruction, and experienced a recent renaissance with improved training algorithms and architectural designs. Understanding why and how trained RNNs produce their behavior is important for scientific and medical applications, and explainable AI more generally. An RNN's dynamical repertoire depends on the topological and geometrical properties of its state space. Stable and unstable manifolds of periodic points play a particularly important role: They dissect a dynamical system's state space into different basins of attraction, and their intersections lead to chaotic dynamics with fractal geometry. Here we introduce a novel algorithm for detecting these manifolds, with a focus on piecewise-linear RNNs (PLRNNs) employing rectified linear units (ReLUs) as their activation function. We demonstrate how the algorithm can be used to trace the boundaries between different basins of attraction, and hence to characterize multistability, a computationally important property. We further show its utility in finding so-called homoclinic points, the intersections between stable and unstable manifolds, and thus establish the existence of chaos in PLRNNs. Finally we show for an empirical example, electrophysiological recordings from a cortical neuron, how insights into the underlying dynamics could be gained through our method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_03814
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Detecting Invariant Manifolds in ReLU-Based RNNs
Eisenmann, Lukas
Brändle, Alena
Monfared, Zahra
Durstewitz, Daniel
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Dynamical Systems
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have found widespread applications in machine learning for time series prediction and dynamical systems reconstruction, and experienced a recent renaissance with improved training algorithms and architectural designs. Understanding why and how trained RNNs produce their behavior is important for scientific and medical applications, and explainable AI more generally. An RNN's dynamical repertoire depends on the topological and geometrical properties of its state space. Stable and unstable manifolds of periodic points play a particularly important role: They dissect a dynamical system's state space into different basins of attraction, and their intersections lead to chaotic dynamics with fractal geometry. Here we introduce a novel algorithm for detecting these manifolds, with a focus on piecewise-linear RNNs (PLRNNs) employing rectified linear units (ReLUs) as their activation function. We demonstrate how the algorithm can be used to trace the boundaries between different basins of attraction, and hence to characterize multistability, a computationally important property. We further show its utility in finding so-called homoclinic points, the intersections between stable and unstable manifolds, and thus establish the existence of chaos in PLRNNs. Finally we show for an empirical example, electrophysiological recordings from a cortical neuron, how insights into the underlying dynamics could be gained through our method.
title Detecting Invariant Manifolds in ReLU-Based RNNs
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Dynamical Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03814