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Comment by HarHarVeryFunny

I think the main benefit of a neuromorphic design would be to make it dataflow driven (asynchronous event driven - don't update neuron outputs unless their inputs change) rather than synchronous, which is the big power efficiency unlock. This doesn't need to imply a spiking design though - that seems more of an implementation detail, at least as far as dataflow goes. Nature seems to use spike firing rates to encode activation strength.

In the brain the relative timing/ordering of different neurons asynchronously activating (A before B, or B before A) is also used (spike-timing-dependent plasticity - STDP) as a learning signal to strengthen or weaken connection strengths, presumably to learn sequence prediction in this asynchronous environment.

STDP also doesn't imply that spikes or single neuron spike train inter-spike timings are necessary - an activation event with a strength and timestamp would seem to be enough to implement a digital dataflow design, although ultimately a custom analog design may be more efficient.

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