Electrical Synapsis

Electrical synapses, which directly transmit signals between neurons via fast current flow, are a focus of neuroscience research investigating neural computation and artificial intelligence. Current research compares their performance to chemical synapses in bio-inspired neural networks, particularly within sparse architectures like Neural Circuit Policies, to understand their respective contributions to learning and control tasks, such as robotic navigation. These studies highlight the importance of both synaptic type and network architecture in achieving efficient and interpretable learning, with a growing emphasis on biophysical synapse models that enhance parameter efficiency and interpretability in artificial neural networks. This work has implications for advancing both our understanding of biological neural systems and the development of more efficient and interpretable AI algorithms.