We measured the variability in latency of the first
spike seen in cells of the cat's lateral geniculate
nucleus following the onset of a visual stimulus. We found
that, in each of the 11 cells tested, this variability
was significantly lower during burst than during tonic
firing. We suggest that this difference confers an advantage
in signal detection during burst compared to tonic firing.
This complements other reported advantages of burst firing
for signal detection seen in signal-to-noise ratios and
in the ability to efficiently drive postsynaptic cells.
