Information transfer rate of neurons: Stochastic reasonance of Shannon's information channel capacity

Abstract

The information channel capacity of neurons is calculated in the stochastic resonance region using Shannon's formula. This quantity is an effective measure of the quality of signal transfer, unlike the information theoretic calculations previously used, which only characterize the entropy of the output and not the rate of information transfer. The Shannon channel capacity shows a well pronounced maximum versus input noise intensity. The location of the maximum is at a higher input noise level than has been observed for classical measures, such as signal-to-noise ratio.