Multi-compartment neuron suitable for implementation in a distributed hardware model by reducing communication bandwidth

A method comprising:

• producing spiking computation in a neural module, said neural module comprising a multilevel hierarchical structure of different types of neural compartments, wherein each neural compartment is individually customizable, and wherein each neural compartment is interconnected to one or more neural compartments of a previous hierarchical level and a next hierarchical level in the hierarchical structure;
• wherein said spiking computation comprises:
• for each neural compartment:
• integrating spike signals from interconnected neural compartments of a previous hierarchical level;
• generating a spike signal in response to the integrated spike signals reaching a threshold of said neural compartment;
• and
• delivering a generated spike signal to interconnected neural compartments of a next hierarchical level.

A non-transitory computer-useable storage medium for producing spiking computation in a neural module, said neural module comprising a multilevel hierarchical structure of neural compartments, wherein each neural compartment is interconnected to one or more neural compartments of a previous hierarchical level and a next hierarchical level in the hierarchical structure, the computer-useable storage medium having a computer-readable program, wherein the program upon being processed on a computer causes the computer to implement the steps of:

• in each neural compartment, integrating spike signals from interconnected neural compartments of a previous hierarchical level;
• in each neural compartment, generating a spike signal in response to the integrated spike signals reaching a threshold of said neural compartment;
• in each neural compartment, delivering a generated spike signal to interconnected neural compartments of a next hierarchical level;
• interconnecting each neural compartment to one or more external spiking systems, wherein each external spiking system is one of the following:
• another neural module, a sensory module, and a motor module;
• in each neural compartment, integrating spike signals from interconnected external spiking systems;
• in each neural compartment, delivering a generated spike signal to interconnected external spiking systems;
• and
• in each neural compartment, delivering a backspike signal to neural compartments of a previous hierarchical level when said neural compartment generates a spike signal or receives a backspike signal;
• wherein the multilevel hierarchical structure includes different types of neural compartments;
• and
• wherein each neural compartment is individually customizable.