A model for the variability of interspike intervals during sustained firing of a retinal neuron

The statistics of the variability of interspike intervals of ganglion cells in the retina of goldfish are modeled by assuming the noise in an integrate-and-fire mechanism is proportional to the reciprocal of a normally distributed variable. This model meets the constraint that the coefficient of variation of the interspike. This does not change when the mean firing rate of the neuron changes. Alternative sources of variability of interspike intervals are discussed.