Pulse computation is a hybrid of digital and analog

Analog computer

An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved...

 computation

Computation

Computation is defined as any type of calculation. Also defined as use of computer technology in Information processing.Computation is a process following a well-defined model understood and expressed in an algorithm, protocol, network topology, etc...

 that uses aperiodic electrical spikes, as opposed to the periodic

Periodic function

In mathematics, a periodic function is a function that repeats its values in regular intervals or periods. The most important examples are the trigonometric functions, which repeat over intervals of length 2π radians. Periodic functions are used throughout science to describe oscillations,...

 voltages in a digital computer or the continuously varying voltages in on analog computer. Pulse streams are unlocked, so they can arrive at arbitrary times and can be generated by analog processes, although each spike is allocated a binary value, as it would be in a digital computer.

Pulse computation is primarily studied as part of the field of neural network

Neural network

The term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes...

s. The processing unit in such a network is called a "neuron".