Another convenient fiction is that neuronal communication is all spikes, 1's and 0's. In this fiction, neuromodulators are ignored. Glial cells are ignored. The

Another convenient fiction is that neuronal communication is all spikes, 1's and 0's. In this fiction, neuromodulators are ignored. Glial cells are ignored. The immune system is ignored. The first neurons in the brain that select for different auditory frequencies are ignored - auditory hair cells release a steady stream of vesicles packed with glutamate, and postsynaptic glutamate receptors compute something like a moving average of the glutamate concentration in the synaptic cleft. But it's much, much more complicated than that. Sounds like something is holding back the field, but averaging is a pretty lousy description of what it might be.