Discharge Patterns of Neurons in Cochlear Nucleus.

Patterns of discharge in slowly adapting, spontaneously discharging neurons of the cochlear nucleus were studied. A technique for analyzing the distribution of intervals between discharges of neurons is described. The response to a steady tone generally was an irregularly spaced train of impulses. In the majority of cells examined, the intervals between discharges were distributed exponentially. The mean interval and standard deviation of the distributions decreased as the level of afferent excitation was increased, but the modal value of the distribution was unchanged.