Spectral Clustering of Synchronous Spike Trains

In this paper a clustering algorithm that learns the groups of synchronized spike trains directly from data is proposed. Clustering of spike trains based on the presence of synchronous neural activity is of high relevance in neurophys-iological studies. In this context such activity is thought to be associated with functional structures in the brain. In addition, clustering has the potential to analyze large volumes of data. The algorithm couples a distance between two spike trains recently proposed in the literature with spectral clustering. Finally, the algorithm is illustrated in sets of computer generated spike trains and analyzed for the dependence on its parameters and accuracy with respect to features of interest.