Sensory encoding model

The map from a physical or behavioural variable (contact force, joint angle, object slip, indentation) to the parameters of the stimulus delivered to the brain. In the write direction it is the rule that turns a prosthetic sensor reading into an ICMS train; in the read direction it is a model of how natural afferents or cortical neurons encode the same variable, which is what one is trying to imitate.

Encoding schemes span a spectrum. Intensity encoding makes amplitude or frequency a monotone function of stimulus magnitude and is simple to calibrate. Biomimetic encoding instead reproduces the temporal dynamics of the afferent population. A well-designed encoding model is jointly constrained by the psychophysics of what percepts a given parameter set actually evokes and by the physiology of what the downstream circuit expects.