Testing for independence between a point process and an analog signal

In neural coding ultra fine electrodes are used to record spike trains from the brains (neurons) of awake animals such as rats,cats and monkeys. But analog singals such as EEG and local field potentials are also recorded. The aim of such experiments is to study the dynamics of the brain with potential development of true neural prosthetics. One problem that arises in extracting information from these recordings is joint modeling of both point processes and analog signals. Here we develop for the first time a test for independence between an analog signal and a point process.