[Nengo-DL] General Questions - Q1

[xchoo]

@zerone

Shouldn’t this be divide amplitude by scale_firing_rates instead of 1/scale_firing_rates?

Ah, yes. That is correct. The amplitude should be divided by scale_firing_rate, not its reciprocal.

@zerone

it should be 2 instead of 20 every time step. Right?

This sentence is correct. The neuron should spike twice every timestep (i.e., 20 per timestep), but this is before the scale_firing_rates scaling reduction is taken into account. With the scale_firing_rates scaling reduction (i.e., divided by 10), the result is a value of 2 every timestep.

@zerone

So I am finding it bit difficult to digest that a neuron can fire 2 spikes in a time step. Is it because we are using SpikingRectifiedLinear neuron and it has this liberty (as in it’s code implementation) to fire 2 spikes in one time step?

As I mentioned in my reply, I was using the activation logic that is specified in the SpikingRectifiedLinear neuron code. Firing twice in one timestep can be understood as the neuron having no refractory period. Or, it can also be understood as the neuron firing twice within the specific time frame that 1 timestep represents. In the example I posted, dt = 0.1s, and it’s entirely possible for even a biological neuron to fire twice within 1/10th of a second, which would be recorded as being 2 spikes within the one timestep.