Weighting of synaptic responses

[Jan Vorbrueggen]

Matt Jones <jonesmat at ohsu.edu> writes:

> >Define "standard neural net modelling".
> 
> Well, I'm not really a connoisseur of neural net modelling, so maybe
> _you_ could provide a brief description of the most common paradigms in
> use. That would be helpful.

Well yes, but there are books about the common paradigms, and I don't use them
because I don't like them...

> And do any of them include inhibitory
> synaptic connections (not negative alteration of weights, but active
> inhibition)?

If by "negative alteration of weights" you mean an adjustable threshold - that
_is_ equivalent to inhibition. You can think of the threshold in two different
ways:

- As a common value subtracted from all weights, such that any weight below
  (threshold / number of inputs) is inhibitory, any above is excitatory
- As one large inhibitory weight which neurobiologically would be a synapse on
  the soma of the cell...and surprise, surprise, in many cases you see just
  that in real nervous systems!

	Jan