Variability and Randomness of the Instantaneous Firing Rate

0543840 - FGÚ 2022 RIV CH eng J - Journal Article
Tomar, Rimjhim - Košťál, Lubomír
Variability and Randomness of the Instantaneous Firing Rate.
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. Roč. 15, Jun 7 (2021), č. článku 620410. E-ISSN 1662-5188
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA20-10251S
Institutional support: RVO:67985823
Keywords : variability * randomness * firing rate * entropy * rate coding * neural coding * temporal coding * instantaneous firing rate
OECD category: Statistics and probability
Impact factor: 3.387, year: 2021
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2021.620410

The apparent stochastic nature of neuronal activity significantly affects the reliability of neuronal coding. To quantify the encountered fluctuations, both in neural data and simulations, the notions of variability and randomness of inter-spike intervals have been proposed and studied. In this article we focus on the concept of the instantaneous firing rate, which is also based on the spike timing. We use several classical statistical models of neuronal activity and we study the corresponding probability distributions of the instantaneous firing rate. To characterize the firing rate variability and randomness under different spiking regimes, we use different indices of statistical dispersion. We find that the relationship between the variability of interspike intervals and the instantaneous firing rate is not straightforward in general. Counter-intuitively, an increase in the randomness (based on entropy) of spike times may either decrease or increase the randomness of instantaneous firing rate, in dependence on the neuronal firing model. Finally, we apply our methods to experimental data, establishing that instantaneous rate analysis can indeed provide additional information about the spiking activity.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0320955