A cochlear implant system, or other neural stimulation system, has the capability to stimulate fast enough to induce stochastic neural firing so as to restore "spontaneous" neural activity. The stimulation rate applied to the more distally-located electrodes of an electrode array connected to the implant system is reduced from the stimulation rate applied to the more proximally-located electrodes. Thus, in the case of a cochlear implant system, the apically-located regions within the cochlea are stimulated at a reduced rate in order to conserve power. Pulse widths of the reduced-rate pulses may further be increased, and amplitudes reduced, to further conserve power. As needed, a low-level random conditioner stimulation signal may be applied to the apical regions of the cochlea in order to ensure the occurrence of random neural firings.