Understanding how artificial neurons mimic biological neural networks
Dendrites receive signals from other neurons. The cell body integrates these signals. If the combined signal exceeds a threshold, the neuron fires an action potential through the axon to other neurons.
Inputs (x₁, x₂, ...) are weighted (w₁, w₂, ...) and summed. A bias (b) is added. The result passes through an activation function to produce the output.
Integration: Both biological and artificial neurons combine multiple inputs into a single output.
Threshold: Both have a threshold mechanism - biological neurons fire when membrane potential exceeds threshold, artificial neurons activate when weighted sum exceeds bias.
Non-linearity: Both introduce non-linearity - biological through action potential generation, artificial through activation functions.