# Saliency-Guided Replay for Continual Learning in Deep Spiking Neural Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.17998 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17998/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 29 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Oct 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [Visualizing and Understanding Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1311.2901/) (2013)
- [Experience Replay for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11682/) (2018)
- [Dark Experience for General Continual Learning: a Strong, Simple Baseline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07211/) (2020)
- [Surrogate Gradient Learning in Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.09948/) (2019)
- [Deep Learning in Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08150/) (2018)
- [Going Deeper in Spiking Neural Networks: VGG and Residual Architectures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.02627/) (2018)
- [Revisiting Batch Normalization for Training Low-latency Deep Spiking Neural Networks from Scratch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01729/) (2020)
- [Remembering for the Right Reasons: Explanations Reduce Catastrophic Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01528/) (2020)
- [Visual Explanations from Spiking Neural Networks using Interspike Intervals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14441/) (2021)
- [ASP: Learning to Forget with Adaptive Synaptic Plasticity in Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.07655/) (2017)
- [Saliency Guided Experience Packing for Replay in Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04954/) (2021)
- [Bayesian Continual Learning via Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.13723/) (2022)
- [Continual Learning with Neuromorphic Computing: Foundations, Methods, and Emerging Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.09218/) (2024)
- [Compressed Latent Replays for Lightweight Continual Learning on Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.03111/) (2024)
- [Saliency-Augmented Memory Completion for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.13242/) (2022)
- [CIP-Net: Continual Interpretable Prototype-based Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07981/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are promising for energy-efficient neuromorphic computing, but they still suffer from catastrophic forgetting when learning tasks sequentially. This work investigates the integration of Experience Packing and Replay (EPR) as a memory-efficient continual learning strategy for deep SNNs under low-latency constraints. The proposed framework combines Batch Normalization Through Time stabilized VGG9 SNNs with Spike Activation Maps (SAM), which provide forward-only explanations based on spike activity. These explanations are temporally aggregated into spatial attention maps and used to select the most informative image patches for replay, instead of storing full images. Experiments on Split CIFAR10 and Split CIFAR100 show that SAM-guided EPR improves the accuracy-memory trade-off under tight memory budgets, and remains competitive while requiring substantially less storage.