Noise-mediated spike timing precision from aperiodic stimuli in an array of Hodgekin-Huxley-type neurons

The influence of noise on the detection and timing precision of neural signals is a topic of current interest. Experimentalists and theorists have recently studied its influence on neural responses to aperiodic stimuli and in relation to temporal encoding schemes. We explore these topics using an array of noisy Hodgekin-Huxley neurons stimulated by a single pulse-type stimulus, which is either subthreshold or suprathreshold. The timing precision is improved by internal noise only for deterministically subthreshold stimuli. A classical statistical formula captures the dominant features of the simulation