Rate synchronization as a deterministic signal in neural spike trains

G. J. ORTEGA, M. BONGARD, E. LOUIS AND E. FERNANDEZ

NEUROCOMPUTING

Año: 2004 vol. 58 p. 1145 - 1151

0925-2312

 We introduce a simple method to analyze recorded spike trains in sensory neurons that allows to reveal deterministic aspects of spiking dynamics. In particular, events with an associated firing rate fr, are defined whenever two successive spikes on a given cell á occur at times tiá and ti−1á such that (fr+Äfr)−1<|tiá−ti−1á|<(fr−Äfr)−1, for a given Äfr. We then look for synchronization of those events on different cells. Our results show that synchronized events are sharply correlated with stimuli. The method is used to analyze experimental time series obtained on retinal ganglion cells and synthetic time series.