Fano Factor: A Potentially Useful Information

0535578 - FGÚ 2021 RIV CH eng J - Journal Article
Rajdl, Kamil - Lánský, Petr - Košťál, Lubomír
Fano Factor: A Potentially Useful Information.
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. Roč. 14, Nov 20 (2020), č. článku 569049. E-ISSN 1662-5188
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA20-10251S
Institutional support: RVO:67985823
Keywords : Fano factor * spike trains * variability measure * intensity * renewal process
OECD category: Statistics and probability
Impact factor: 2.380, year: 2020
Method of publishing: Open access
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2020.569049/full

The Fano factor, defined as the variance-to-mean ratio of spike counts in a time window, is often used to measure the variability of neuronal spike trains. However, despite its transparent definition, careless use of the Fano factor can easily lead to distorted or even wrong results. One of the problems is the unclear dependence of the Fano factor on the spiking rate, which is often neglected or handled insufficiently. In this paper we aim to explore this problem in more detail and to study the possible solution, which is to evaluate the Fano factor in the operational time. We use equilibrium renewal and Markov renewal processes as spike train models to describe the method in detail, and we provide an illustration on experimental data.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0314538