A Fundamental Inequality Governing the Rate Coding Response of Sensory Neurons

TL;DR

This paper derives and tests a fundamental inequality that constrains the firing rates of sensory neurons, with implications for auditory modeling and understanding neuronal response limits.

Contribution

It introduces a new inequality governing neuronal spike activity and validates it with auditory data, advancing mechanistic models of sensory neuron responses.

Findings

Firing rate must lie between the arithmetic and geometric means of spontaneous and peak activities.

The inequality is supported by empirical auditory data.

Implications for developing more accurate auditory neuron models.

Abstract

A fundamental inequality governing the spike activity of peripheral neurons is derived and tested against auditory data. This inequality states that the steady-state firing rate must lie between the arithmetic and geometric means of the spontaneous and peak activities during adaptation. Implications towards the development of auditory mechanistic models are explored.