# Are the High-weight Neurons the Important Ones in Image Classification Neural Networks?

Source: [Are the High-weight Neurons the Important Ones in Image Classification Neural Networks?](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/6a6988f9ecc699bfe185a5e0>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2026-07-30T05:00:06.193Z

Authors: Qitao Chen, Dongfu Yin, F. Richard Yu

Published: 2026-07-28T10:14:35.000Z

## Abstract

As neural network models for image classification advance, neurons play critical roles in pruning, backdoor defense, and interpretability. Yet existing work lacks clarity on the weight-importance relationship. We address this with a neuron importance assessment method using three experiments: quantifying overlap between high-weight and accuracy-impacting neurons, analyzing high-weight neuron perturbation effects, and testing post-retraining accuracy after high-weight neuron ablation. Experiments on CIFAR-10 and Mini-ImageNet reveal key patterns. Overlap analysis shows top 10\\% high-weight neurons overlap with important ones by only about 25\\% at maximum, dropping further in subsequent intervals. Perturbation tests find top 10\\% high-weight neurons cause 45-80\\% accuracy degradation under certain operations compared to 3-7\\% for random perturbations, but a third of them show minimal impact. Ablation-retraining results show removing top 10\\% high-weight neurons leaves accuracy 10-20\\% below baseline with no recovery, while ablating top 0.1\\% allows near-full recovery. Notably, some low-weight intervals show 10-17\\% degradation when perturbed, comparable to mid-range high-weight neurons. These results confirm not all high-weight neurons are important: their importance is nonlinear. Low-weight neurons also contribute significantly. This challenges weight-importance equivalence, offering refined neuron role insights. It supports applications like encryption prioritizing critical high-weight neurons and pruning removing non-critical ones, advancing neural network analysis.

## Recorded benchmark results

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## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.25529>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.25529.pdf>)