Correlation Index: a New Metric to Quantify Temporal Coding

The standard procedure to study temporal encoding of sound waveforms in the auditory system has been Fourier analysis of responses to periodic stimuli. We introduce a new metric--correlation index (CI)--which is based on a simple counting of spike coincidences. It can be used for responses to aperiodic stimuli and does not require knowledge of the stimulus. Moreover, the basic procedure of comparing spiketimes in spiketrains is more physiological than currently used methods for temporal analysis. The CI is the peak value of the normalized shuffled autocorrelogram (SAC), which provides a quantitative summary of temporal structure in the neural response to arbitrary stimuli. We illustrate the CI and SACs by comparing temporal coding in the auditory nerve and output fibers of the cochlear nucleus.