A primary challenge in utilizing in-vitro biological neural networks for
computations is finding good encoding and decoding schemes for inputting and
decoding data to and from the networks. Furthermore, identifying the optimal
parameter settings for a given combination of encoding and decoding schemes
adds additional complexity to this challenge. In this study we explore
stimulation timing as an encoding method, i.e. we encode information as the
delay between stimulation pulses and identify the bounds and acuity of
stimulation timings which produce linearly separable spike responses. We also
examine the optimal readout parameters for a linear decoder in the form of
epoch length, time bin size and epoch offset. Our results suggest that
stimulation timings between 36 and 436ms may be optimal for encoding and that
different combinations of readout parameters may be optimal at different parts
of the evoked spike response.

通过研究刺激时间作为一种编码方法，本研究探讨了在输入和解码数据时寻找合适的编码和解码方案的主要挑战，并确定了产生线性可分离脉冲响应的刺激时机的界限和敏锐度。同时，我们还研究了线性解码器的最佳读取参数，包括时期长度、时间间隔和时期偏移量，并发现 36 至 436 毫秒之间的刺激时机可能是最佳的编码方法，并且在触发的脉冲响应的不同部分可能存在不同的最佳读取参数组合。