Perforated Backpropagation: A Neuroscience Inspired Extension to Artificial Neural Networks · HackerPapers discussionshttps://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/2501.18018/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMTPerforated Backpropagation: A Neuroscience Inspired Extension to Artificial Neural Networks — mentioned by rorry-brennerhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44606288urn:hackerpapers:mention:2501.18018:44606288Fri, 18 Jul 2025 16:03:16 GMT<p>Hey HN! We built this after studying recent neuroscience research showing that dendrites perform significant nonlinear computation that current AI completely ignores. Traditional artificial neurons are basically weighted sums + activation functions. Real neurons have dendrites that do complex processing before the cell body even sees the signal. Our implementation adds &quot;dendritic support units&quot; that can be dropped into existing PyTorch models with minimal code changes. This open source version focuses on gradient descent training, while we continue research on alternative training mechanisms…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/2501.18018/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>cs.NE