Paper ID: 2406.12552

Evolutionary Spiking Neural Networks: A Survey

Shuaijie Shen, Rui Zhang, Chao Wang, Renzhuo Huang, Aiersi Tuerhong, Qinghai Guo, Zhichao Lu, Jianguo Zhang, Luziwei Leng

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) are gaining increasing attention as potential computationally efficient alternatives to traditional artificial neural networks(ANNs). However, the unique information propagation mechanisms and the complexity of SNN neuron models pose challenges for adopting traditional methods developed for ANNs to SNNs. These challenges include both weight learning and architecture design. While surrogate gradient learning has shown some success in addressing the former challenge, the latter remains relatively unexplored. Recently, a novel paradigm utilizing evolutionary computation methods has emerged to tackle these challenges. This approach has resulted in the development of a variety of energy-efficient and high-performance SNNs across a wide range of machine learning benchmarks. In this paper, we present a survey of these works and initiate discussions on potential challenges ahead.

Submitted: Jun 18, 2024