Computing with Action Potentials

Brody t SamRoweis t Abstract Most computational engineering based loosely on biology uses continuous variablesto represent neural activity. Yet most neurons communicate with action potentials. The engineering view is equivalent to using a rate-code for representing information and for computing. An increasing numberof examples are being discovered in which biology may not be using rate codes. Information can be represented using the timing of action potentials, and efficiently computed with in this representation.