Analysis of integrate-and-fire neurons: Synchronization of synaptic input and spike output

Abstract

A new technique for analyzing the probability distribution of output spikes for the integrate-and-fire model is presented. This technique enables us to investigate models with arbitrary synaptic response functions that incorporate both leakage across the membrane and a rise time of the postsynaptic potential. The results, which are compared with numerical simulations, are exact in the limit of a large number of small-amplitude inputs. This method is applied to the synchronization problem, in which we examine the relationship between the spread in arrival times of the inputs (the temporal jitter of the synaptic input) and the resultant spread in the times at which the output spikes are genera..