The relationship between the firing rate of a single neuron and the level of activity in a population of neurons. Experimental evidence for resonant enhancement in the population response.

A quantitative comparison is made between experiment and the theoretically predicted dynamics of a neuron population. The experiment confirms the theoretical prediction that under appropriate conditions an enlarged resonant response should appear in the activity of the neuron population, near the frequency at which there is minimum modulation in the instantaneous rate of a single neuron. These findings bear on the relationship between the firing rate of a single neuron and the firing rate of a population of neurons.