An Information-Theoretic Analysis of Cutaneous Receptor Responses

Two prevalent underlying assumptions related to cutaneous receptor research are that receptor responses are conditionally independent given the stimulus, and that stimulus information is encoded through a mean rate code. In this paper, an information-theoretic technique that can be used to test these assumptions is developed and presented. Results are presented from experiments designed to evaluate the efficiency of mean rate codes and the independence of receptor discharges recorded from cutaneous receptor afferent neurons.