{"paper":{"title":"Local Synaptic Rules Can Implement a SIGReg Gradient Without Backpropagation","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.AI","cs.CV","cs.LG"],"primary_cat":"cs.NE","authors_text":"Martin Andrews","submitted_at":"2026-07-03T19:05:26Z","abstract_excerpt":"We prove that two canonical local synaptic learning rules, the potentiation arm of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP$^+$) and homeostatic plasticity (instantiated here via flashlight granule-cell-like neurons), together can implement the exact gradient of a SIGReg-like self-supervised learning objective. The equivalence requires no gradient calculations, no global error signals, no weight transport, and no label information: the only inputs are pre- and post-synaptic firing rates, local firing statistics, and the temporal contiguity of natural sensory streams. On a synthetic clustering t"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2607.21622","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2607.21622/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}