Layers in a Stack

hypnagogic electropop, rumba cape verdean, korean cabaret, harpischord doo-wop · 4:09

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Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Memory's not a single switch, it's layers in a stack
Milliseconds up to lifetimes, each connection's got your back
Short-term plasticity dancing at the synapse gate
Calcium residue facilitating, vesicles that can't escape

Facilitation builds the signal when the bursts come through
High-pass filter catching onsets, makes the next release break through
Depression drains the vesicle pool, adapts to constant flow
Low-pass filtering for novelty, lets the background undertow

[Chorus]
Fire together, wire together, but the order's what we learn
Pre before post gets stronger, flip it and the tables turn
Twenty milliseconds window, causality's the key
STDP detection, A preceded B

[Verse 2]
Hebbian learning had the concept but it couldn't find the brake
Weights would spiral to infinity, unstable for learning's sake
Correlation missed the timing, couldn't read the causal thread
Till spike-timing came to rescue what the pioneers had said

Delta T tells all the story in exponential decay
A-plus strengthens forward connections, A-minus takes away
When the pre-spike leads the party and the post-spike follows through
Potentiation writes the memory of what the input knew

[Chorus]
Fire together, wire together, but the order's what we learn
Pre before post gets stronger, flip it and the tables turn
Twenty milliseconds window, causality's the key
STDP detection, A preceded B

[Bridge]
Backpropagating action potential carries news from soma's fire
Glutamate already binding in the spine's electric choir
High calcium means potentiation, modest levels bring depression
Order of operations writing each synaptic session

[Verse 3]
Not just co-activity patterns, but prediction in the link
If A can tell you B is coming, strengthen that synaptic ink
Swap the order of arrival, same two spikes but different fate
LTD erases connections that arrived a moment late

Dynamic filters shape the message, statistics in the stream
Seconds-long reset cycles serving computation's dream
From milliseconds up to lifetimes, every timescale has its place
Memory's distributed symphony written in synaptic space

[Verse 4]
Competition shapes the landscape, winners take and losers fade
Heterosynaptic depression keeps the total balance made
Local clusters start to strengthen, distant inputs lose their hold
Selectivity emerges from the stories spikes have told

[Chorus]
Fire together, wire together, but the order's what we learn
Pre before post gets stronger, flip it and the tables turn
Twenty milliseconds window, causality's the key
STDP detection, A preceded B

[Outro]
Three-factor rules will gate the learning, relevance decides the weight
But timing is the fundamental key that seals each synapse's fate

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