Paper detail

Learning to learn with backpropagation of Hebbian plasticity

Hebbian plasticity is a powerful principle that allows biological brains to learn from their lifetime experience. By contrast, artificial neural networks trained with backpropagation generally have fixed connection weights that do not change once training is complete. While recent methods can endow neural networks with long-term memories, Hebbian plasticity is currently not amenable to gradient descent. Here we derive analytical expressions for activity gradients in neural networks with Hebbian plastic connections. Using these expressions, we can use backpropagation to train not just the baseline weights of the connections, but also their plasticity. As a result, the networks "learn how to learn" in order to solve the problem at hand: the trained networks automatically perform fast learning of unpredictable environmental features during their lifetime, expanding the range of solvable problems. We test the algorithm on various on-line learning tasks, including pattern completion, one-shot learning, and reversal learning. The algorithm successfully learns how to learn the relevant associations from one-shot instruction, and fine-tunes the temporal dynamics of plasticity to allow for continual learning in response to changing environmental parameters. We conclude that backpropagation of Hebbian plasticity offers a powerful model for lifelong learning.