Beginner
Action potential
Also known as: Spike, Firing
A brief electrical pulse (a "spike") that a neuron fires to send a signal down its axon.
An action potential lasts about a millisecond and is all-or-nothing: a neuron either fires or it doesn’t. Information is carried by how often and when neurons spike.
Intracortical BCIs count spikes on each electrode, often in 10–20 ms windows, and use those counts as inputs to the decoder.
Last updated Sep 30, 2026. Educational content, not medical advice.