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Spike times make sense

Trends in NeurosciencesPublished 6 November 2004
Rufin VanRullen, Rudy Guyonneau, Simon J. Thorpe
Citations467
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score4.73
SNIP3.68

TL;DR

Evidence of rapid first-spike times in the human somatosensory system is uncovered and their potential generalization to other sensory modalities is discussed.

Abstract

Many behavioral responses are completed too quickly for the underlying sensory processes to rely on estimation of neural firing rates over extended time windows. Theoretically, first-spike times could underlie such rapid responses, but direct evidence has been lacking. Such evidence has now been uncovered in the human somatosensory system. We discuss these findings and their potential generalization to other sensory modalities, and we consider some future challenges for the neuroscientific community.

Keywords

Neuroscience