Neural mechanisms to improve timing

摘要

We use probabilistic techniques to study neural systems which improve the timing accuracy of action potential firing. A striking example of such accuracy was discovered in the columnar region of the VNLL by Covey and Casseday (J. Neurosci. 11 (1991) 3456). In response to sound stimulation, these VNLL cells fire an action potential whose latency under repeated trials has a standard deviation of approximately 100 μs. This is remarkable because the typical standard deviation in the auditory nerve is 1 ms. In simple systems, we show how the improvement in timing depends on the number of incoming fibers and the number of hits required in a small time window.