978-1-4799-2764-7/13/$31.

00 2013 IEEE 1442

2013 6th International Congress on Image and Signal Processing (CISP 2013)

This work is sponsored by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61179011) and Major Projects of Science and Technology for
Industry-Academia Cooperation in Fujian Province (Grant No.2013H6008). *Corresponding author


Circle Detection Using a Spiking Neural Network
Liuping Huang, Qingxiang Wu*, Xiaowei Wang, Zhiqiang Zhuo, Zhenmin Zhang
College of Optoelectronic and Information Engineering, Fujian Normal University
Fuzhou, China
Abstract --The receptive field of neurons plays various roles in
biological neural networks. In this paper a spiking neural
network model is proposed using a mechanism inspired by the
biological receptive field. The network is composed of multiple
layers, and the neurons are connected by excitatory and
inhibitory synapses. When a visual image presents to the
network, location and radius of a circle on the visual image can
be obtained from firing rates of the neurons from the
corresponding layers. The simulation results show that the
network can perform circle detection similar to Hough circle
detection and calculations are conducted by a parallel
mechanism in a biological manner. This model can be used to
explain how a spiking neuron-based network to detect circle, and
the high speed parallel mechanism in the model can be used in
artificial intelligent systems.
Key wordsspiking neural networks; circle detection; hough
transform; receptive field.
. INTRODUCTION
Biological evidence indicates that receptive fields of
sensory neurons have certain plasticity, changing in response
to variances of neural activity or sensory experience [1-2]. In
order to extract features from images of an environment
promptly, the visual system must be able to adapt quickly to
the change of scenes. A single neuron in the visual cortex
respond to light stimulation in receptive fields on the retina,
and the structure of these receptive fields can vary in different
environments [4]. The results in [4] show that temporal and
spatial restructuring of visual cortical receptive fields may be
important in controlling the resolution of visual processing in
the primary visual cortex in a state-dependent manner. By
comparing the structure of receptive fields recorded from the
different layers of the cats primary visual cortex, the structure
of the receptive fields vary with layer in the primary visual
cortex [5]. In order to read out, or decode content from brain
activity, a decoding method based on quantitative
receptive-field models is proposed to describe the relationship
between visual stimulation and neuron activity in early visual
areas [6].
Design of artificial intelligent systems to make human-like
intelligent systems has been a goal for human to pursue, also
is a challenging goal for researchers. As whole neuronal
circuits in the brain are too complicated to be drawn using
modern science and technology, most biological findings are
only referred to individual neurons and local circuits in the
biological nerve system. The receptive fields in the visual
system can be developed by training [7-9,18]. During
development of the visual system, the pattern of visual inputs
may have an extremely important role in refining developing
neural circuits. Therefore, in order to apply simulation
structures of receptive field in visual neurons to solve
problems in artificial intelligent systems, it is required to
create a structure based on the properties of single neurons
and local neuronal circuits, or modeling of the biological
system in a way based on electronic circuits. For example,
many researchers have studied simulations of the human
visual system, which is called artificial vision system [10].
Based on the receptive fields inspired by biological system,
different spiking neural network models have been used to
edge and motion detections [11-12] and feature extraction [13].
It can be boldly predicted that most image processing
functions can be implemented using different spiking
neuron-based networks. In this paper, a spiking neural
network model is proposed to detect circle in a visual image.
Simulation results show that the circle detection can be
completed within 100ms time if the model is implemented in
fully parallel by electronic units whose processing speed is the
same as biological neurons.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Firstly,
a network model based on integrate-and-fire neurons is
detailed in Section 2. The receptive fields of spiking neurons
play a crucial role for circle detecting in the network. The
behaviours of the neurons with the receptive fields are
analyzed in Section 3. Simulation results for circle detection
are shown in Section 4. Conclusions are presented in Section 5.
. SPIKING NEURAL NETWORK MODEL FOR
CIRCLE DETECTION
Neuroscientists have found that there are various receptive
fields from simple cells in the striate cortex to those of the
retina and lateral geniculate nucleus [14] and the neurons can
be simulated by the Hodgkin and Huxley neuron model.
Based on these receptive fields and the neuron model, a
network model is proposed to detect circles in a visual image
in this paper. The structure of the network is shown in Fig. 1.
Suppose that the first layer represents photonic receptors.
Each pixel corresponds to a receptor. The intermediate layer is
composed of multiple neuron arrays of same size. The third
layer represents the output layer, which is composed of one
dimensional neuron array and a two-dimensional neuron array.
Each neuron in the output layer integrates corresponding
outputs from intermediate neurons.
There are many parallel neuron arrays in the intermediate
1443


layer with the same dimension as the receptor layer. Only
three neuron arrays are shown in Fig. 1 for simplicity. Each of
neurons in these arrays are connected to a given radius of
circular receptive field in the receptor layer by differing
weight matrices
( , ) ( , )
r
ex x y a b
w

for excitatory synapses and
ih ( , ) ( , )
r
x y a b
w

for inhibitory synapses respectively. The
location of the neuron (a, b) represents the center of the circle,
a-b arrays of neurons on the left side correspond to the smaller
radius of the receptive field while the right arrays of neurons
corresponds to the larger radius of the receptive field. For
example, each neuron of Array4 in the middle layer has
circular receptive fields with a radius of 4 units, shown as
yellow circles in Fig. 1. And each neuron of Array7 has a
circular receptive field with a radius of 7 units. If each circle
has the same center but different radius in the input image, it
will activate the neuron at the location (a, b) of corresponding
arrays in intermediate layer. As shown in Fig. 1 three
concentric receptive fields with radius of 4, 5, 7 activate the
neuron of the corresponding position on Array4, Array5,
Array7 respectively. In the output layer each neuron receives
spikes of the neurons corresponding position in each neuron
array among the middle layer. For example, in Fig. 1 neurons
(x', y') is connected to the corresponding neurons of all neuron
arrays. The firing rate of the output neuron array can be
obtained from integration of all the spike trains from each
neuron array in the intermediate layer. The circle center (a
0
, b
0
)
in the input image can be obtained by the (x', y')
corresponding to the maximum firing rate of ( ', ') x y . Each
neuron on the r-neuron-array in output layer is respectively
connected to all neurons in the corresponding neuron array.
For example, in Fig. 1 neuron for r = 4 is connected with all
neurons in Array4. The firing rate ( ') r can be obtained
from integration of spike train of the corresponding neuron
array. The circle with radius r
0
in the input image is obtained
from r corresponding to the maximum firing rate. Therefore,
the radius of a circular image in the input layer is obtained by
maximum firing rate of r-output neuron array, and the center
of the circle can be obtained by the location corresponding to
the neuron with the largest firing rate in the 2D-output neuron
array.

Fig. 1. Spiking Neural Network Model for Circle Detecting
SPIKING NEURON MODEL AND RECEPTIVE
FIELDS
Simulation results show that the conductance based
integrate-and-fire model is very close to the Hodgkin and
Huxley neuron model [9]. The conductance based
integrate-and-fire model is applied to the aforementioned
network model. Let S
x,y
(t) represent spike train from x-y array.
,
ex
x y
q represents the peak conductance caused by excitatory
current from a receptor at (x,y), and
,
( )
ih
x y
q t represents the
peak conductance caused by inhibitory current from a receptor
at point (x,y). For simplicity, suppose that each receptor can
transform a value of gray scale to peak conductance by the
following expressions.
,
1 ( , ) .
( )
0 ( , )
x y
if neuron x y fires at time t
S t
if neuron x y does not fire at time t

(1)
, ,
( ) ( )
ex
x y x y
q t S t = ;
, ,
( ) ( )
ih
x y x y
q t S t = ,
(2)
where and are constants. According to the
conductance based integrate-and-fire model [9-16], neuron
a,bof every array on intermediate layer is governed by the
following equations (take the neuron array r as an example),
the neuron behaviours can be controlled by following
1444


equations (3), (4),(5):
( , )
( , ) ,
( )
1
( ) ( ).
ex x y
ex x y x y
ex
dg t
g t S t
dt

= +
(3)
( , )
( , ) ,
( )
1
( ) ( ).
ih x y
ih x y x y
ih
dg t
g t S t
dt

= +
(4)
( , ) ( , ) ( , ) ,
, ,
( , ) ( , ) ( , )
,
( ) ( )
( ( )) ( ( ))
( )
( ( )),
r r
ex x y a b ex x y a b r r
m l l a b ex a b
ex
r
ih x y a b ih x y r
ih a b
ih
w g t dv t
c g E v t E v t
dt A
w g t
E v t
A

= +
+

(5)
where
( , )
( )
ex x y
g t and
( , )
( )
ih x y
g t are the conductance for
excitatory and inhibitory synapses respectively,
ex
and
ih
are
the time constants for excitatory and inhibitory synapses
respectively,
,
( )
r
a b
v t is the membrane potential of neuron
(a, b) on the neuron array r, E
ex
and E
ih
are the reverse
potential for excitatory and inhibitory synapses respectively,
c
m
represents a capacitance of the membrane, g
l
represents the
conductance of membrane, ex is short for excitatory and ih for
inhibitory, A
ex
is the membrane surface area connected to a
excitatory synapse, and A
ih
is the membrane surface area
connected to a inhibitory synapse,
( , ) ( , )
r
ex x y a b
w

represents
the strength of excitatory synapses of neuron array r,
( , ) ( , )
r
ih x y a b
w

represents the strength of inhibitory synapses
of neuron array r. According to the description of biological
receptive fields and Hough Transform [17], values for
( , ) ( , )
r
ex x y a b
w

and
( , ) ( , )
r
ih x y a b
w

are expressed as follows.
When the potential
,
( )
r
a b
v t is larger than threshold
v
th
, the neuron generates a spike and proceeds to refractory
period for time
ref
. After the refractory period the neuron will
start to integrate inputs from a potential v
rest
. Let
,
( )
r
a b
S t
represent a spike train which is generated by neuron (a,b) on
the neuron array r.
,
1 ( , ) .
( )
0 ( , ) .
r
a b
if neuron a b fires at timet
S t
if neuron a b does not fire at timet

(8)
Neuron
( ', ') x y
in the output layer is governed by the
following equations.

Where w=1, because the connection between each
neuron array in intermediate layer and the output layer is
equivalent. Let S
x, y
(t) represent a spike train which is
generated by neuron
( ', ') x y
in output layer. The firing rate
for Neuron
( ', ') x y
is calculated by the following expression.

Where ' x =1,2, I; ' y =1,2,J, IJ is the size of
input image.
( ', ') x y
represents the firing rate of the output
neuron array. The peaks of firing rates in the output array
correspond to the center (a
0
,b
0
) of circle in the x-y array.
Neuron r of one-dimension in the output layer is governed by
the following equations.
Let S
r
(t) represent a spike train which is generated by
neuron r in output layer. The firing rate for Neuron r is
calculated by the following expression.
'
1
( ') ( ).
t T
r
t
r S t
T

+
=


(15)
0
' 1 R
( '). arg max
r
r r

=
(16)
( ') r
represents the firing rate of the output neuron array.
The circle radius r
0
can be obtained from the corresponding
peaks of firing rates in the output array.
SIMULATION RESULTS
The network model was implemented in Matlab using a
set of parameters for the network: vth = -60 mv. v
reset
= -70
mv. Eex= 0 mv. Eih= -75 mv. El= -70 mv. gl =1.0 s/mm2.
cm=8 nF/mm2.
ex
=4 ms. A
ex
=0.03125 mm2. gl=1.0
us/mm2.T=100ms. q=0.0015. t
ref
=3 ms. According to the prior
knowledge, r is from 1 to 50. These parameters can be
adjusted to get good quality of output image. Each neuron
corresponds to a pixel on the x-y array. Each neuron on the
circle generates a Poisson spike train with mean frequency 60
Hz.
In order to demonstrate the behaviour of the network, two
images with 215x215 pixels. (as shown in Fig.2) are presented
to the network. Fig. 2(a) is one image with two concentric
circles. Fig. 2(b) is another image with two non-concentric
circles.
2 2
( , ) ( , )
2 2
1, ( )
0, ( )
r
ex x y a b
ifa x r y b
w
ifa x r y b

(6)
2 2
( , ) ( , )
2 2
1, whether ( ) or
( )
r
ih x y a b
w a x r y b
a x r y b

= =


(7)
', '
' ' ,
1
( )
1
( ) ( ).
ex
r R
x y ex r
x y a b
ex r
dg t
g t w S t
dt
=
=
= +


(9)
', ' ', '
', ' ', '
( ) ( )
( ( )) ( ( )).
ex
x y x y
m l l x y ex x y
ex
dv t g t
c g E v t E v t
dt A
= +
(10)
', '
1
( ', ') ( ).
t T
x y
t
x y S t
T

+
=


(11)
0 0
( ', ') I J
, ( ', '). arg max
x y
a b x y

=
(12)
'
' ,
1
( ) 1
( ) ( ).
ex r R
ex r r
r a b
ex r
dg t
g t w S t
dt
=
=
= +


(13)
' '
' '
( ) ( )
( ( )) ( ( )).
ex
r r
m l l r ex r
ex
dv t g t
c g E v t E v t
dt A
= +
(14)
1445



a

(b)
Fig.2 Images to test network
1. Experiment 1
If the circle in Fig. 2(a) is presented to the network model,
a firing rate map is obtained in the X-Y array of output layer
as shown in Fig. 3(a) or (b). Firing rate map (a) is obtained
using 3D plot, while firing rate map (b) is obtained using 2D
plot. It can be seen that the center of two concentric circles in
the x-y array can be represented by one peak-firing-rate
neuron in the X-Y array. In this case, the neuron with the peak
firing rate is Neuron (114,114). Another firing rate map is
obtain in the 1xR array of output layer as shown in Fig. 3(c) .
It can be seen that the radius of two concentric circles in the
x-y array can be represented by two peak-firing-rate neuron in
the 1xR array. In this case, the neurons with the peak firing
rate are Neuron (1,28) corresponding to smaller circle and
Neuron (1,42) corresponding to bigger circle.

(a) Firing rate map with 3D

(b) Firing rate map with 2D

cFiring rate distribution of 1xR array
Fig. 3 stimulation result


(a) Firing rate map with 3D

(b) Firing rate map with 2D

cFiring rate distribution of 1xR array
Fig. 4 stimulation result

2. Experiment 2
If the model is simulated with an image as shown in Fig.
2(b), a firing-rate map of X-Y array of output layer is seen in
Fig. 4(a) or (b). The center of two non-concentric circles in
the x-y array can be presented by two peak-firing-rate neuron
in the X-Y array. In this case, the neurons with the peak firing
rate are Neuron(57,142) of smaller circle center and Neuron
(142,57) of bigger circle center. Another firing rate map is
1446


obtain in the 1xR array of output layer as shown in Fig. 4(c) .
It can be seen that the radius of two non-concentric circles in
the x-y array can be represented by two peak-firing-rate
neuron in the 1xR array. In this case, the neurons with the
peak firing rate are Neuron (1,28) of smaller circle radius and
Neuron (1,42) of bigger circle radius.
CONCLUSION
Spiking neural networks are constructed by a hierarchical
structure that is composed of spiking neurons with various
receptive fields and plasticity synapses. Various receptive
fields and hierarchical structures of spiking neurons enable a
spiking neural network to perform very complicated
computations, learning tasks and intelligent behaviours in the
human brain. Inspired by biological findings, this paper
demonstrated how a spiking neural network can detect circles
in an image. Although the neuron circuits in the brain for
circle detection are not very clear, the proposed network
model is a possible solution based on spiking neurons. The
experimental results show that the network can perform the
Hough-like transform and detects circles. In the simulation,
the neuron firing rate map for radius and center can be
obtained with a time interval 100 ms. This time interval is
consistent with the biological visual system. The maximum
spike firing rate of r-output neuron array corresponds to
circle radius, while the largest firing rate of the 2D-output
neuron array corresponds to the location of circle center. By
adjusting these parameters, the locations of circles center and
radius in the visual image can also be enhanced. However,
there are still discussion questions that would be studied
further. Firstly, how the model can exist in the biological
visual system, for example, the visual cortex layers [5].
Secondly, it seems that the receptive field is possible to be
developed based on the principle of spike timing dependent
plasticity of synapses [7]. Finally, there are different receptive
fields in the visual system and we need to investigate how the
visual system can switch among the different receptive fields
in response of different visual images. These are topics for
further study.
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