Meta-learning three-factor plasticity rules for structured credit assignment with sparse feedback
Dimitra Maoutsa
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09366 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.09366 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.09366
arXiv:2512.09366v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Biological neural networks learn complex behaviors from sparse, delayed feedback using local synaptic plasticity, yet the mechanisms enabling structured credit assignment remain elusive. In contrast, artificial recurrent networks solving similar tasks typically rely on biologically implausible global learning rules or hand-crafted local updates. The space of local plasticity rules capable of supporting learning from delayed reinforcement remains largely unexplored. Here, we present a meta-learning framework that discovers local learning rules for structured credit assignment in recurrent networks trained with sparse feedback. Our approach interleaves local neo-Hebbian-like updates during task execution with an outer loop that optimizes plasticity parameters via \textbf{tangent-propagation through learning}. The resulting three-factor learning rules enable long-timescale credit assignment using only local information and delayed rewards, offering new insights into biologically grounded mechanisms for learning in recurrent circuits.
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The #Enclosure feedback loop or how LLMs sabotage existing programming practices by privatizing a public good:
“[…]something has been taken from the public. Not just the training data, but the public forums and practices that created this training data in the first place. […] LLM companies are now selling back to us something that used to be available for free.”
You Only Train Once: Differentiable Subset Selection for Omics Data
Daphn\'e Chopard, Jorge da Silva Gon\c{c}alves, Irene Cannistraci, Thomas M. Sutter, Julia E. Vogt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17678 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.17678 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.17678
arXiv:2512.17678v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Selecting compact and informative gene subsets from single-cell transcriptomic data is essential for biomarker discovery, improving interpretability, and cost-effective profiling. However, most existing feature selection approaches either operate as multi-stage pipelines or rely on post hoc feature attribution, making selection and prediction weakly coupled. In this work, we present YOTO (you only train once), an end-to-end framework that jointly identifies discrete gene subsets and performs prediction within a single differentiable architecture. In our model, the prediction task directly guides which genes are selected, while the learned subsets, in turn, shape the predictive representation. This closed feedback loop enables the model to iteratively refine both what it selects and how it predicts during training. Unlike existing approaches, YOTO enforces sparsity so that only the selected genes contribute to inference, eliminating the need to train additional downstream classifiers. Through a multi-task learning design, the model learns shared representations across related objectives, allowing partially labeled datasets to inform one another, and discovering gene subsets that generalize across tasks without additional training steps. We evaluate YOTO on two representative single-cell RNA-seq datasets, showing that it consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. These results demonstrate that sparse, end-to-end, multi-task gene subset selection improves predictive performance and yields compact and meaningful gene subsets, advancing biomarker discovery and single-cell analysis.
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