title: Coding of information in limit cycle oscillators.
abstract: Starting from a general description of noisy limit cycle oscillators, we derive from the Fokker-Planck equations the linear response of the instantaneous oscillator frequency to a time-varying external force. We consider the time series of zero crossings of the oscillator's phase and compute the mutual information between it and the driving force. A direct link is established between the phase response curve summarizing the oscillator dynamics and the ability of a limit cycle oscillator, such as a heart cell or neuron, to encode information in the timing of peaks in the oscillation.
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, 10115 Berlin, Germany. jan-hendrik.schleimer@bccn-berlin.de
authors.forename: Jan-Hendrik
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Schleimer
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stemmler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D009991:Oscillometry / Q000295:instrumentation*