Intel & Brainchip Patents, page-20

But isn't that what Spiking Neural Networks do.... 'accentuate the positive': building the threshold potential of a synapse?

"What is threshold for action potential?
This means that some event (a stimulus) causes the resting potential to move toward 0 mV. When the depolarization reaches about -55 mV a neuron will fire an action potential. This is the threshold. If the neuron does not reach this critical threshold level, then no action potential will fire.

What does the synaptic potential do? Synaptic potentials are the incoming signals to the neuron. When the neuron is depolarized to threshold, it generates an action potential. The action potential is the outgoing signal of the neuron."
(Neuroscience For Kids - action potential)

"The idea is that neurons in the SNN do not fire at each propagation cycle (as it happens with typical multi-layer perceptron networks), but rather fire only when a membrane potential – an intrinsic quality of the neuron related to its membrane electrical charge – reaches a specific value. When a neuron fires, it generates a signal that travels to other neurons which, in turn, increase or decrease their potentials in accordance with this signal"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiking_neural_network