Simulation spike trains with rate changing every millisecond: issue with the inh_poisson_generator f

[Servant Mathieu]

Hello,

I would like to simulate a spike train during 2000ms. The rate of the Poisson process changes every millisecond. It is comprised between 20 spikes/second and 160 spikes/second.

I've tried the following simulation, using the inh_poisson_generator function:

import NeuroTools
import numpy as np
from NeuroTools import stgen
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import random

st_gen = stgen.StGen()

time = np.arange(0, 2000)
t_rate = []
for i in range (2000):
    t_rate.append(random.randrange(20, 161, 1))
t_rate = np.array(t_rate)

Psim = st_gen.inh_poisson_generator(rate = t_rate, t = time, t_stop = 2000., array = True)
print Psim

The code, however, generally returns very few timestamps (e.g.,  array([ 1317.21345232,  1319.43234986,  1703.89908678])  )  which appears very weird to me. Am I doing things correctly?

Best,

Mathieu

[Andrew Davison]

Dear Mathieu,

I suggest testing the function with simple rate values that allow you to more easily compare the output to your expectation, rather than with random values.

Best regards,

Andrew