The Spontaneous Firing of Cortical Neurons

As one looks at the spike train of a cortical neuron no obvious order can be seen. The apparently random spike train may, however, contain some hidden patterns. Searching for such patterns is quite difficult. The patterns of firing that one looks for depend largely on the type of model that one has in mind. On the one hand, one may assume that the spike train is like a Morse code in which each sequence of intervals has a specific meaning. On the other hand, the average rate of firing over some time interval may be the only significant feature of the spike train.