Learning by message-passing in networks of discrete synapses

We show that a message-passing process allows to store in binary “material” synapses a number of random patterns which almost saturates the information theoretic bounds. We apply the learning algorithm to networks characterized by a wide range of different connection topologies and of size comparable with that of biological systems (e.g. $n\simeq {10}^5-{10}^6$). The algorithm can be turned into an on-line --fault tolerant-- learning protocol of potential interest in modeling aspects of synaptic plasticity and in building neuromorphic devices.