A workshop in Ski, Norway, 19.-20. May 2011.
Organized by: Gaute T. Einevoll, Espen Hagen, Felix Franke
Background
Sorting of spikes recorded by tetrodes or other multielectrodes is difficult. At the moment this spike sorting is typically done with a large manual component, making the procedure very labor intensive and unreliable. Further, different labs often use their own method making it difficult to compare their results. The presently used spike-sorting procedures have also not been validated in a quantitative way, at least not comprehensively. This makes the accuracy difficult to assess and the methods difficult to trust.
An international collaborative effort seems called for to improve the situation.
In May 2010 Gyorgy Buzsaki and Dima Rinberg organized a nice workshop on the topic at Janelia Farm. For the workshop at Ski, organized exactly a year later, the aim was to build on this initiative and to stimulate the development of a coordinated international effort to address the issue.
Several automatic spike-sorting methods have been developed, some of them by workshop participants, but an obstacle for this development has been the limited availability of reliable test data, i.e., multielectrode recordings where one knows the "true" underlying firing sequences of the relevant neurons. Also, good virtual meeting places where people with spike-sorting algorithms can get access to test data has been lacking.
We believe that significant progress can be made if a motivated group of (i) spike-sorting algorithm developers, (ii) users of such algorithms, (iii) people who can provide test data (either experimental or obtained by modeling), and (iv) people who can provide collaborative web-tools meet and join forces.
Participants
| Clemens Boucsein | Isabel Delgado-Ruz | Gaute T. Einevoll |
| Felix Franke | Marianne Fyhn | Samuel Garcia |
| Torkel Hafting | Espen Hagen | Ken Harris |
| Dan Hill | Anders Johansson | Shabnam Kadir |
| Emilio Kropff | Henrik Linden | Philipp Meier |
| Luis A. Camunas Mesa | Christophe Pouzat | Raphael Ritz |
| Simon Schultz | Shy Shoham | Erik Schomburg |
| Andrey Sobolev | Eran Stark | Ariel Tankus |
| Palmi Thor Thorbergsson |
Session 1: Algorithms
Algorithms for spike sorting data from large, dense electrode arrays
Kenneth Harris, Imperial College, London, GB
Spike sorting of non-stationary data (slides)
Eran Stark, Rutgers Univ.
Off-line and on-line spike sorting with a heuristic neural gas algorithm
Emilio Kropff, NTNU
Robust automatic classification of single units, multi-units and optogenetic validation (slides)
Shy Shoham and Ariel Tankus, Technion
Template matching with linear filters (slides)
Felix Franke, TU-Berlin
Session 2: Applications
Using multi-electrode arrays to localise and classify neurons in vivo
Simon Schultz, Imperial
Needs and hopes for spike sorting algorithms: analyzing data from the rodent visual system
Clemens Boucsein, U Freiburg
Session 3: Data for testing and validation of algorithms
Simulation of extracellular recordings
Luis Camunas, U Leicester
Modeling extracellular potentials in the rat hippocampus (slides)
Erik Schomburg, Caltech
Biophysically detailed test data from LFPy (slides)
Espen Hagen, Henrik Linden, UMB
Session 4: Electrodes
Electrodes and data acquisition for neural recordings
Anders Johanson, U Lund
Session 5: Metrics for comparison of spike trains
Estimation of false positive and negative error rates for sorted single-unit spike trains (slides)
Dan Hill, TU Munich
Spike sorting and sorting quality evaluation through generative model estimation, data simulation, flexible coarse classification and refined template matching (slides, high-res)
Christophe Pouzat, CNRS & U Paris
Session 6: Facilitation of collaboration
What we hope to achieve today
Gaute T. Einevoll, UMB
OpenElectrophy's spikesorting framework: a bridge between good methods and experimentalists (slides)
Samuel Garcia, CNRS, Lyon
Tools for collaborative data sharing at the German INCF Node (slides, odp)
Andrey Sobolev, CNRS, Lyon
How can INCF assist? (slides)
Raphael Ritz, INCF Secr., Stockholm
Demonstration of evaluation page
Felix Franke and Espen Hagen