Title: CaRe-BN: Precise Moving Statistics for Stabilizing Spiking Neural Networks in Reinforcement Learning
Primary area: applications to neuroscience & cognitive science
Keywords: Spiking Neural Networks, Batch Normalization, Reinforcement Learning

Abstract: Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) offer low-latency and energy-efficient decision-making on neuromorphic hardware by mimicking the event-driven dynamics of biological neurons. However, due to the discrete and non-differentiable nature of spikes, directly trained SNNs rely heavily on Batch Normalization (BN) to stabilize gradient updates. In online Reinforcement Learning (RL), imprecise BN statistics hinder exploitation, resulting in slower convergence and suboptimal policies. This challenge limits the adoption of SNNs for energy-efficient control on resource-constrained devices. To overcome this, we propose Confidence-adaptive and Re-calibration Batch Normalization (CaRe-BN), which introduces (\emph{i}) a confidence-guided adaptive update strategy for BN statistics and (\emph{ii}) a re-calibration mechanism to align distributions. By providing more accurate normalization, CaRe-BN stabilizes SNN optimization without disrupting the RL training process. Importantly, CaRe-BN does not alter inference, thus preserving the energy efficiency of SNNs in deployment. Extensive experiments on continuous control benchmarks demonstrate that CaRe-BN improves SNN performance by up to $22.6$% across different spiking neuron models and RL algorithms. Remarkably, SNNs equipped with CaRe-BN even surpass their ANN counterparts by $5.9$%. These results highlight a new direction for BN techniques tailored to RL, paving the way for neuromorphic agents that are both efficient and high-performing.