Statistics for studying quanta at synapses: resampling and confidence limits on histograms.

This paper describes some statistical methods for working with data on quantal sizes. Since quantal sizes often do not fit to normal probability distribution functions, statistics based on the normal distribution are inappropriate. Resampling methods can be used to determine confidence limits and to test whether two sets of data differ by chance. Some hypotheses about the nature of quanta are based on apparent peaks and valleys in histograms. Confidence limits can be placed on the bins in the histogram by using the Kolomorogov-Smirnov statistic or by resampling. The confidence limits should assist in the evaluation of the significance of the valleys.