These differ from action potentials because information about the strength of a stimulus directly correlates with the strength of the neurons' output. The signal decays much faster for graded potentials, necessitating short inter-neuron distances and high neuronal density. The advantage of graded potentials is higher information rates capable of encoding more states (i.e. higher fidelity) than spiking neurons.

Although action potentials can vary somewhat in duration, amplitude and shape, they are typically