  A system of globally coupled phase oscillators subject to an external input
is considered as a simple model of neural circuits coding external stimulus.
The information coding efficiency of the system in its asynchronous state is
quantified using Fisher information. The effect of coupling and noise on the
information coding efficiency in the stationary state is analyzed. The
relaxation process of the system after the presentation of an external input is
also studied. It is found that the information coding efficiency exhibits a
large transient increase before the system relaxes to the final stationary
state.
