Recent studies on the theoretical performance of latency and rate code in single neurons have revealed that the ultimate accuracy is affected in a nontrivial way by aspects such as the level of spontaneous activity of presynaptic neurons, amount of neuronal noise or the duration of the time window used to determine the firing rate. This study explores how the optimal decoding performance and the corresponding conditions change when the energy expenditure of a neuron in order to spike and maintain the resting membrane potential is accounted for. It is shown that a nonzero amount of spontaneous activity remains essential for both the latency and the rate coding. Moreover, the optimal level of spontaneous activity does not change so much with respect to the intensity of the applied stimulus. Furthermore, the efficiency of the temporal and the rate code converge to an identical finite value if the neuronal activity is observed for an unlimited period of time.

• MeSH
• Time Factors MeSH
• Energy Metabolism * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Membrane Potentials MeSH
• Models, Neurological * MeSH
• Nerve Net cytology   physiology   MeSH
• Neural Networks, Computer * MeSH
• Neurons physiology   MeSH
• Computer Simulation MeSH
• Computational Biology MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

• MeSH
• Cochlea physiology   innervation   MeSH
• Sound Localization physiology   MeSH
• Brain Stem cytology   physiology   MeSH
• Reaction Time MeSH
• Publication type
• Review MeSH

Neuronal response latency is usually vaguely defined as the delay between the stimulus onset and the beginning of the response. It contains important information for the understanding of the temporal code. For this reason, the detection of the response latency has been extensively studied in the last twenty years, yielding different estimation methods. They can be divided into two classes, one of them including methods based on detecting an intensity change in the firing rate profile after the stimulus onset and the other containing methods based on detection of spikes evoked by the stimulation using interspike intervals and spike times. The aim of this paper is to present a review of the main techniques proposed in both classes, highlighting their advantages and shortcomings.

• MeSH
• Action Potentials physiology   MeSH
• Algorithms * MeSH
• Evoked Potentials physiology   MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Models, Neurological * MeSH
• Nerve Net physiology   MeSH
• Neurons physiology   MeSH
• Computer Simulation MeSH
• Reaction Time physiology   MeSH
• Models, Statistical MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Review MeSH
• Comparative Study MeSH

• MeSH
• Electrodiagnosis methods   MeSH
• Electromyography MeSH
• Spinal Cord Diseases diagnosis   MeSH
• Neural Conduction physiology   MeSH
• Synaptic Transmission physiology   MeSH
• Neuromuscular Diseases diagnosis   MeSH

• Conspectus
• Patologie. Klinická medicína
• NML Fields
• neurologie
• diagnostika
• NML Publication type
• kolektivní monografie