A novel spike distance.
The discrimination between two spike trains is a fundamental problem for both experimentalists and the nervous system itself. We introduce a measure for the distance between two spike trains. The distance has a time constant as a parameter. Depending on this parameter, the distance interpolates between a coincidence detector and a rate difference counter. The dependence of the distance on noise is studied with an integrate-and-fire model. For an intermediate range of the time constants, the distance depends linearly on the noise. This property can be used to determine the intrinsic noise of a neuron.
Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454, USA.
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van Rossum
D000465:Algorithms; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D016012:Poisson Distribution