Noise spectrum and signal transmission through a population of spiking neurons.

How reliably can a population of spiking neurons transmit a continuous-time signal? We study the noise spectrum of a fully connected population of spiking neurons with relative and absolute refractoriness. Spikes are generated stochastically with a rate that depends on the postsynaptic potential. The analytical solution of the noise spectrum of the population activity is compared with simulations. We find that strong inhibitory couplings can considerably reduce the noise level in a certain frequency band. This allows the population to reliably transmit signals at frequencies close to or even above the single-neuron firing rate.