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Spike Train Distance

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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

Synonyms

Spike metric

Definition

A “spike train distance” is a means for comparing two sequences of stereotyped events. The term “spike metric” refers to a spike train distance that, additionally, has the formal mathematical properties of a metric. Spike train distances have broad application in neuroscience, since the action potentials emitted by a neuron or set of neurons can be regarded as a sequence of stereotyped events; we briefly survey these applications here.

Detailed Description

Spike train distances are rules for assigning a notion of distance, or dissimilarity, to pairs of event sequences. In contrast to most quantitative approaches to the analysis of scientific data, the framework of spike train distances does not make the implicit assumption that the objects of interest (i.e., the event sequences) can be thought of as vectors. In many cases, including the earliest examples of spike train distances (van Rossum 2001; Victor and Purpura 1996, 1997), these distances also...

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Acknowledgment

Supported by NIH EY07977 to JDV.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Complex Systems (ISC), National Research Council (CNR), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy

    Thomas Kreuz

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Conor Houghton

  3. Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute and Department of Neurology, Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY, USA

    Jonathan D. Victor

Authors
  1. Thomas Kreuz
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  2. Conor Houghton
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  3. Jonathan D. Victor
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan D. Victor .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, GA, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

    Ranu Jung

Section Editor information

  1. Lab for Statistical Neuroscience, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM–6) and Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS–6), Jülich Research Centre and JARA, Jülich, Germany

    Sonja Grün

  2. Theoretical Systems Neurobiology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Sonja Grün

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Kreuz, T., Houghton, C., Victor, J.D. (2020). Spike Train Distance. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_409-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_409-2

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Spike Train Distance
    Published:
    11 December 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_409-2

  2. Original

    Spike Train Distance
    Published:
    20 February 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_409-1

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