# Efficient Aspect Term Extraction using Spiking Neural Network

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.06637 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06637/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 80 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Character-level Convolutional Networks for Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.01626/) (2015)
- [Surrogate Gradient Learning in Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.09948/) (2019)
- [Ups and Downs: Modeling the Visual Evolution of Fashion Trends with One-Class Collaborative Filtering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.01585/) (2016)
- [Spatio-Temporal Backpropagation for Training High-performance Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02609/) (2017)
- [Incorporating Learnable Membrane Time Constant to Enhance Learning of Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.05785/) (2020)
- [Going Deeper in Spiking Neural Networks: VGG and Residual Architectures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.02627/) (2018)
- [BERT Post-Training for Review Reading Comprehension and Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02232/) (2019)
- [Enabling Spike-based Backpropagation for Training Deep Neural Network Architectures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.06379/) (2019)
- [Knowing What, How and Why: A Near Complete Solution for Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.01616/) (2019)
- [DIET-SNN: Direct Input Encoding With Leakage and Threshold Optimization in Deep Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.03658/) (2020)
- [A Joint Training Dual-MRC Framework for Aspect Based Sentiment Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00816/) (2021)
- [A Unified Model for Opinion Target Extraction and Target Sentiment Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.05082/) (2018)
- [A scalable multi-core architecture with heterogeneous memory structures for Dynamic Neuromorphic Asynchronous Processors (DYNAPs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04198/) (2017)
- [Double Embeddings and CNN-based Sequence Labeling for Aspect Extraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04601/) (2018)
- [Conversion of Artificial Recurrent Neural Networks to Spiking Neural Networks for Low-power Neuromorphic Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.04187/) (2016)
- [Aspect Term Extraction with History Attention and Selective Transformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.00760/) (2018)
- [Recursive Neural Conditional Random Fields for Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.06679/) (2016)
- [The power of deeper networks for expressing natural functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.05502/) (2017)
- [A Long Short-Term Memory for AI Applications in Spike-based Neuromorphic Hardware](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03992/) (2021)
- [Conditional Augmentation for Aspect Term Extraction via Masked Sequence-to-Sequence Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.14769/) (2020)
- [SpikeBERT: A Language Spikformer Learned from BERT with Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15122/) (2023)
- [STAA-SNN: Spatial-Temporal Attention Aggregator for Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02689/) (2025)
- [Spiking Convolutional Neural Networks for Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19230/) (2024)
- [A Fully-Configurable Open-Source Software-Defined Digital Quantized Spiking Neural Core Architecture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02248/) (2024)
- [Wafer2Spike: Spiking Neural Network for Wafer Map Pattern Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.19422/) (2024)
- [Improving Performance of Spike-based Deep Q-Learning using Ternary Neurons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03392/) (2025)
- [New Spiking Architecture for Multi-Modal Decision-Making in Autonomous Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.01882/) (2025)
- [EliXa: A Modular and Flexible ABSA Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.01944/) (2017)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Aspect Term Extraction (ATE) identifies aspect terms in review sentences, a key subtask of sentiment analysis. While most existing approaches use energy-intensive deep neural networks (DNNs) for ATE as sequence labeling, this paper proposes a more energy-efficient alternative using Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs). Using sparse activations and event-driven inferences, SNNs capture temporal dependencies between words, making them suitable for ATE. The proposed architecture, SpikeATE, employs ternary spiking neurons and direct spike training fine-tuned with pseudo-gradients. Evaluated on four benchmark SemEval datasets, SpikeATE achieves performance comparable to state-of-the-art DNNs with significantly lower energy consumption. This highlights the use of SNNs as a practical and sustainable choice for ATE tasks.