Theory 06/Micro to Milli/Neural coding
Spike Precision Is a Time Ratio
The claim
The precision of spike timing is set by the ratio of membrane time constant to input jitter, so a neuron with a long time constant cannot encode fine timing regardless of input.
01Mechanism
Integration smooths the input; the membrane acts as a low-pass filter whose cutoff relative to input variability sets the achievable precision.
02Prediction
Precision should track the ratio.
03Refutation
Precision tracking input jitter alone would remove the membrane term.