12Functional neuroimaging is a powerful non-invasive tool for studying brain function, using changes in blood-13 oxygenation as a proxy for underlying neuronal activity. The neuroimaging signal correlates with both spiking, and 14 various bands of the local field potential (LFP), making the inability to discriminate between them a serious 15 limitation for interpreting hemodynamic changes. Here, we record activity from the striate cortex in two 16 anesthetized monkeys (Macaca mulatta), using simultaneous functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and 17 intra-cortical electrophysiology. We find that low-frequency LFPs correlate with hemodynamic signal's peak-18 amplitude, whereas spiking correlates with its peak-time and initial-dip. We also find spiking to be more spatially 19 localized than low-frequency LFPs. Our results suggest that differences in spread of spiking and low-frequency LFPs 20 across cortical surface influence different parameters of the hemodynamic response. Together, these results 21 demonstrate that the hemodynamic response-amplitude is a poor correlate of spiking activity. Instead, we 22 demonstrate that the timing of the initial-dip and the hemodynamic response are much more reliable correlates of 23 spiking, reflecting bursts in spike-rate and total spike-counts respectively. 24