Quantifying How Training Gradient Sparsity Affect Spiking Neural Network Accuracy And Robustness

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have recently received increasing attention in both computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence owing to their potential for energy-efficient computation and reduced memory requirements. Despite these advantages, improving adversarial robustness in SNNs (particularly for vision-based applications) remains an emerging and relatively underexplored research problem. Recent work has suggested that encouraging sparse gradients can act as a regularization mechanism to improve resistance against adversarial perturbations. In this study, we report an unexpected observation: under certain architectural configurations, SNNs inherently exhibit sparse gradients and can attain state-of-the-art adversarial defense performance without requiring any explicit regularization strategy. Further investigation reveals an inherent trade-off between robustness and generalization. Specifically, increased gradient sparsity enhances resistance to adversarial attacks but may reduce the model's generalization capability, whereas denser gradients tend to improve generalization while simultaneously increasing susceptibility to adversarial perturbations. These findings provide new perspectives on the role of gradient sparsity in the training dynamics of SNNs.