Neural coding
Temporal coding in sensory systems

For very brief stimuli, a neuron's maximum firing rate may not be fast enough to produce more than a single spike. Due to the density of information about the abbreviated stimulus contained in this single spike, it would seem that the timing of the spike itself would have to convey more information than simply the average frequency of action potentials over a given period of time. This model is especially important for sound localization, which occurs within the brain on the order of milliseconds. The brain must obtain a large quantity of information based on a relatively short neural response. Additionally, if low firing rates on the order of ten spikes per second must be distinguished from arbitrarily close rate coding for different stimuli, then a neuron trying to discriminate these two stimuli may need to wait for a second or more to accumulate enough information. This is not consistent with numerous organisms which are able to discriminate between stimuli in the time frame of milliseconds, suggesting that a rate code is not the only model at work.
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