Techniques and mechanisms for determining the value of a weight associated with a synapse of a spiking neural network. In an embodiment, a first spike train and a second spike train are output, respectively, by a first node and a second node of the spiking neural network, wherein the synapse is coupled between said nodes. The weight is applied to signaling communicated via the synapse. A value of the weight is updated based on a product of a first value and a second value, wherein the first value is based on a first rate of spiking by the first spike train, and the second value is based on a second rate of spiking by the second spike train. In another embodiment, the weight is updated based on a product of a derivative of the first rate of spiking and a derivative of the second rate of spiking.