Measures of Spike Train Synchrony: From Single Neurons to Populations

With the increasing availability of multiunit recordings, the focus of attention is shifting from bivariate estimators of spike train synchrony toward methods that describe patterns of activity across many neurons. Such measures of population spike train synchrony are becoming indispensable tools for addressing issues such as spike timing reliability, network synchronization, and neuronal coding. This chapter will give an overview of different approaches designed to quantify multiple neuron synchrony. It will address both measures of synchrony among one group of neurons as well as measures that estimate the degree of synchronization between populations of neurons.