Daily Run: Neuroscience of Learning

Subtopic change: Initial wave introducing Hebbian plasticity, spike-timing dependent plasticity, and memory consolidation.

Day 1

Subtopics: Hebbian weight updates, STDP curve, literature on memory consolidation.

Hebbian plasticity

1. Simulated two binary neurons with update $\Delta w=\eta xy$ and $\eta=0.1$.
2. Ran ten random input pairs, tracking the weight.
3. Stored the trajectory in hebbian.csv.
4. Observed monotonic growth when spikes co-occurred.
5. Considered adding normalization to bound $w$.

Spike-timing dependent plasticity

1. Adopted $\Delta w=\pm e^{-\lvert\Delta t\rvert/\tau}$ with $\tau=20$\,ms.
2. Evaluated $\Delta w$ for $\Delta t=-20,-10,0,10,20$\,ms.
3. Saved the table to stdp.csv.
4. Confirmed potentiation for $\Delta t<0$ and depression for $\Delta t>0$.
5. Noted the exponential decay away from coincidence.

Memory consolidation

1. Reviewed a summary article on hippocampal replay during sleep.
2. Highlighted evidence linking slow-wave activity to long-term storage.
3. Related replay to experience replay in reinforcement learning.
4. Identified candidate models for future simulation.
5. Planned to test a simple replay algorithm next wave.

Subtopic assessment: The Hebbian and STDP simulations produced concrete data, while the consolidation review charted directions for upcoming computation.