Software toolbox for analysis of neural spike train data

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary: Understanding how neurons, the specialized cells of the nervous system code and process information continues to be a major goal of neuroscientists. Improved understanding of the neural code will have a huge impact on both neuroscience and clinical neurology. Existing neural prosthetics will be improved and the door will open on a whole host of new neural prosthetics. The National Institutes of Health have identified that a significant roadblock to progress in many areas of biomedical research is attributable to deficiencies in currently available computational tools. R.C. Electronics proposes research and development leading to a commercial spike train analysis software product that will provide neuroscientists with a sophisticated, state-of-the-art, single-unit and multi-unit spike train analysis tool suite that is extendable, standardized, open and collaborative. R.C. Electronics proposes to implement both standard, well-established spike train analysis techniques as well as novel, more recent strategies. The toolbox will be built in MATLAB for easy user augmentation and algorithm sharing. The long-term goals of this project are to produce a product that will not only provide a high-quality spike analysis capability, but also facilitate the development of new methods and research into method comparisons. The proposed software has a broad applicability to neuroscience research both physiology and pathophysiology, including research aimed at studying the neuronal function of the brain following HIV infection. Relevance: Neuroscience researchers are working to develop medical applications that will allow a person, for example, to control a computer cursor or robot based on "reading" the electrical activity of neurons, the specialized cells of the nervous system. The basic research involves observing and analyzing the simultaneous activity of hundreds of neurons. This project offers this field of research a new set of computational tools for this kind of data and a platform that promotes sharing of computational tools to further advance this important field of research.