Improving Neural Models

So many groups working on how to make such models smaller and faster.  Not different from the very long hunt for faster models to solve optimization problems over the years.   Discussion is technical.

A Tool to Simplify Complex Neuron Models
EPFL News (Switzerland)
January 15, 2020

Researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and Israel's Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a computational tool to streamline complex neuron models of any type of cell, while retaining their input/output properties and accelerating the run-times of cell simulations. The Neuron_Reduce tool maps a dendritic computation tree into a simpler multi-cylindrical tree, mapping synapses and ion channels into the reduced model to preserve their transfer impedance to the cell body. EPFL's Pramod Kumbhar said, "Neuron_Reduce ... opens the path for a novel type of reduced models that crucially maintain important details of the model but possibly run 40 to 250 times faster."