In a distributed recurrent neural network equivalent changes at one synapse might correspond to different patterns of activity and changes in strength at particular links between two cells may become meaningless.The information is not necessarily resident in the links among the units, but is likely to be provided by the activity organized in a highly precise temporal mode. Precise spatio-temporal firing sequences and attractor dynamics may be strongly associated, such that the detection of spatio-temporal firing patterns may reveal the existence of underlying modes of activity controlled by few parameters in deterministic chaotic dynamics.