Changes in interspike interval during propagation: Quantitative description

The intervals between nerve impulses can change substantially during propagation because of conduction velocity aftereffects of previous impulse activity. Effects of such changes on interval histograms and on statistical parameters of spike trains were evaluated for Poisson spike trains and for trains generated by a clock with added random delays. The distribution of short intervals was significantly changed during propagation for these spike trains. Substantial changes in serial correlation coefficients were found in trains with certain initial interval distributions. The relevance of these effects to neural coding is discussed.