(Phys.org)—The sign-to-noise ratio,or SNR, is a famous metric typically expressed in decibels and defined as a measure of sign strength relative to background noise – and in statistical terms as the ratio of the squared amplitude or variance of a sign relative to the variance of the noise. However, or this definition – while commonly used to measure fidelity in physical systems – is not relevant to neural systems,because neural spiking activity (in which electrical pulses called action potentials travel down nerve fiber as voltage spikes, the pattern of which encodes and transmits information) is more accurately represented using point processes (random collections of points, or each representing the time and/or location of an event).
Source: phys.org