Figure 6.

Spike time spreading in a single neuron over time and in a population. A. Experimental trace for 1:2 locking. B. Single neuron over time. For a single neuron being periodically forced at 1:2 over many cycles, the second spike after the stimulus is much less tightly locked to the stimulus than the first. C. Snapshot of spike times within a population during one cycle of low frequency forcing. In an idealized scenario, the first spike times are perfectly synchronized and the distribution of spike times ρ_t,0 is a delta function. Since the period of each neuron is a random process, on any given cycle, there is a Gaussian distribution of the interval until the next spike. Subsequent spike times become more spread out, as shown by the distribution ρ_t,1 for the first set of spikes times and ρ_t,2 for the second, until the next forcing input is received to reestablish synchrony. The mean period for the population is denoted by μ.