Auditory-nerve action potentials form a nonrenewal point process over short as well as long time scales.
The firing patterns of auditory-nerve action potentials exhibit long-term fractal fluctuations that do not arise from the distribution of the interevent intervals, but rather from the ordering of these intervals. Using the serial interevent-interval correlation coefficient, the Fano-factor time curve, and shuffling of interevent intervals, it is shown that adjacent intervals for spontaneous firings exhibit significant correlation. The events are therefore nonrenewal over short as well as long time scales.
Lowen
S B
SB
Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027.
Teich
M C
MC
D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009412:Nerve Fibers / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*; D000159:Vestibulocochlear Nerve / Q000502:physiology*