ArticleNature neuroscience2024
Inferring neural activity before plasticity as a foundation for learning beyond backpropagation.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Biomimetic Visual Sensing Framework: Unsupervised Orientation Topographic Mapping via Self-Organizing Neural Networks.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Orbitofrontal-sensory cortical interactions in learning and adaptive decision-making.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- pyhgf: A neural network library for predictive coding.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Cellular and subcellular specialization enables biology-constrained deep learning.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Desegregation of neuronal predictive processing.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Contextual inference through flexible integration of environmental features and behavioural outcomes.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Closed-form feedback-free learning with forward projection.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Risky or rigorous? Developing trustworthiness criteria for AI-supported qualitative data analysis.Anatomical sciences education · 2026Article
- Invariant visual object and face learning in the ventral cortical visual pathway: A biologically plausible model.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Calcium signaling and postsynaptic density dynamics: the roles of calmodulin in synaptic protein regulation.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2026Review
- TEVSER: a theory of evolving self-representations.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural Associative Skill Memories for Safer Robotics and Modeling Human Sensorimotor Repertoires.Neural computation · 2025Article
- Neuronal Actin Remodeling and Its Role in Higher Nervous Activity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Stimulus-to-stimulus learning in RNNs with cortical inductive biases.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Quality prediction method for automotive body resistance spot welding based on digital twin technology.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Learning predictive signals within a local recurrent circuit.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A Gaussian Mixture Model-Based Unsupervised Dendritic Artificial Visual System for Motion Direction Detection.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Sex-Specific Contrasting Role of BECLIN-1 Protein in Pain Hypersensitivity and Anxiety-Like Behaviors.eNeuro · 2025Article
- Dynamic Network Plasticity and Sample Efficiency in Biological Neural Cultures: A Comparative Study with Deep Reinforcement Learning.Cyborg and bionic systems (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
For both humans and machines, the essence of learning is to pinpoint which components in its information processing pipeline are responsible for an error in its output, a challenge that is known as 'credit assignment'. It has long been assumed that credit assignment is best solved by backpropagation, which is also the foundation of modern machine learning. Here, we set out a fundamentally different principle on credit assignment called 'prospective configuration'. In prospective configuration, the network first infers the pattern of neural activity that should result from learning, and then the synaptic weights are modified to consolidate the change in neural activity. We demonstrate that this distinct mechanism, in contrast to backpropagation, (1) underlies learning in a well-established family of models of cortical circuits, (2) enables learning that is more efficient and effective in many contexts faced by biological organisms and (3) reproduces surprising patterns of neural activity and behavior observed in diverse human and rat learning experiments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.