NEURAL CODES - FIRING RATES AND BEYOND

Computational neuroscience has contributed significantly to our unders tanding of higher brain function by combining experimental neurobiolog y, psychophysics, modeling, and mathematical analysis. This article re views recent advances in a key area: neural coding and information pro cessing, It is shown that synapses are capable of supporting computati ons based on highly structured temporal codes, Such codes could provid e a substrate for unambiguous representations of complex stimuli and b e used to solve difficult cognitive tasks, such as the binding problem , Unsupervised learning rules could generate the circuitry required fo r precise temporal codes, Together, these results indicate that neural systems perform a rich repertoire of computations based on action pot ential timing.