Many neuroscientists are interested in the problem of coding over the Poisson channel, which is the canonical model for the sensory spike trains resulting as a response to a stimulus. Of particular interest to them is the question of whether optimal encoding of the environment depends on its statistics. Shannon\u2019s separation theorem states that source coding (compression) and channel coding (error protection) can be performed separately, while maintaining optimality. We explore the extent to which this separation principles holds when the environment (source) consists on one random variable

Part of NSF Site Visit December 1, 2011