# Precision Time Protocol
**Domain:** Distributed Systems / Time Synchronization
**Doc Type:** Technical Standard Concept
**Maturity:** Established
**Related:** [[DICOM Real-Time Video]], [[SMPTE ST 2110]], [[Multimodal Neural Data Fusion]]
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## Definition
**Precision Time Protocol (PTP)** synchronizes clocks across networked devices to a shared time reference with much greater precision than ordinary wall-clock synchronization. Precision depends on network topology, hardware timestamping, clock quality, configuration, and profile.
## Neural-interface role
PTP can preserve the temporal relationship among stimulus, video, audio, device events, and neural responses. Shared clock precision is a precondition for valid multimodal fusion, not a guarantee that the streams have been semantically aligned.