Relationships between rate and pattern of unitary discharges in medial geniculate body of the cat in response to click and amplitude-modulated white-noise stimulation.

THE MICROELECTRODE technique, by permitting observations of the spike trains from single sensory neurons, has broadened our understanding of sensory information processing by the central nervous system. Since technical limitations prohibit the maintenance of prolonged electrical contact with a single neuron, a relatively brief sample of the single-unit record is often the basis for characterizing the stimulus-response characteristics of a unit. I f unit discharge characteristics are invariant over time, a sample record obtained at any time would be sufficient to characterize the unit’s response. On the other hand, if unit discharge characteristics do vary over time, a sample record may give a restricted view sensory stimulation. of a unit’s response to