Patent ID: 8346692

Claim:
A method for characterizing a pattern, the method comprising: providing a spiking neural network having at least one layer of neurons; connecting each neuron to at least one other neuron for transmitting signals from said neuron to said at least one other neuron; specifying a time interval, wherein an active neuron is a neuron that spikes at least once during the time interval; computing, for each neuron, time-varying synaptic weights between said neuron and said at least one other neuron connected to said neuron, the time-varying synaptic weights being computed according to a number of neurons that are connected to said neuron and that are active during the time interval, the time-varying synaptic weights being further computed according to an activity of the spiking neural network during the time interval; synchronizing spiking of each neuron according to a number of active neurons connected to said neuron and according to the time-varying synaptic weights between said neuron and said at least one other neuron connected to said neuron; submitting at least one pattern to the spiking neural network for generating sequences of spikes in the spiking neural network, the sequences of spikes being modulated over time by the synchronization of the spiking; and characterizing the at least one pattern according to the sequences of spikes generated in the spiking neural network.