The term hybrid

neural network A neural network is a network or neural circuit, circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up ...

can have two meanings: #

Biological neural networks A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits interconnect to one another to form large scale brain networks. Biological neural networks have inspired th ...

interacting with artificial neuronal models, and # Artificial neural networks with a

symbolic Symbolic may refer to: * Symbol, something that represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity Mathematics, logic, and computing * Symbolic computation, a scientific area concerned with computing with mathematical formulas * Symbolic dynami ...

part (or, conversely, symbolic computations with a

connectionist Connectionism refers to both an approach in the field of cognitive science that hopes to explain mental phenomena using artificial neural networks (ANN) and to a wide range of techniques and algorithms using ANNs in the context of artificial in ...

part). As for the first meaning, the

artificial neuron An artificial neuron is a mathematical function conceived as a model of biological neurons, a neural network. Artificial neurons are elementary units in an artificial neural network. The artificial neuron receives one or more inputs (representing ...

s and

synapse In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron or to the target effector cell. Synapses are essential to the transmission of nervous impulses fr ...

s in hybrid networks can be

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analo ...

. For the digital variant

voltage clamp The voltage clamp is an experimental method used by electrophysiologists to measure the ion currents through the membranes of excitable cells, such as neurons, while holding the membrane voltage at a set level. A basic voltage clamp will itera ...

s are used to monitor the

membrane potential Membrane potential (also transmembrane potential or membrane voltage) is the difference in electric potential between the interior and the exterior of a biological cell. That is, there is a difference in the energy required for electric charge ...

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, electrically excitable cell (biology), cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous ...

s, to computationally simulate artificial neurons and synapses and to stimulate biological neurons by inducing synaptic. For the analog variant, specially designed electronic circuits connect to a network of living neurons through electrodes. As for the second meaning, incorporating elements of symbolic computation and artificial neural networks into one model was an attempt to combine the advantages of both paradigms while avoiding the shortcomings. Symbolic

representation Representation may refer to: Law and politics *Representation (politics), political activities undertaken by elected representatives, as well as other theories ** Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a ...

s have advantages with respect to explicit, direct control, fast initial coding, dynamic variable binding and knowledge abstraction. Representations of artificial neural networks, on the other hand, show advantages for biological plausibility, learning,

robustness Robustness is the property of being strong and healthy in constitution. When it is transposed into a system, it refers to the ability of tolerating perturbations that might affect the system’s functional body. In the same line ''robustness'' ca ...

(fault-tolerant processing and graceful decay), and generalization to similar input. Since the early 1990s many attempts have been made to reconcile the two approaches.

References

Biological and artificial neurons

References

See also