Entropy analysis of neuronal spike train synchrony

Although vector strength (VS) and the Rayleigh tests are widely used to quantify neuronal firing synchrony to cyclic events, their use is valid only for singly peaked, unimodal distributions. In this report, we propose a new method to quantify synchrony, applicable to both unimodal and multimodal distributions. We also propose a statistical test to examine temporal structure under a null hypothesis of no synchrony.