Table 1.
Comparison between a selection of existing software for spike train analysis.
| CX | FD | NT | SL | NY | OY | ET | SR | NE | SV | PS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version Language | 2.12 Matlab | 2.0 Matlab | 2.0 Matlab | 1.00 Matlab | 0.1 Python | 0.3.5 Python | 0.3.0 Python | 0.3-2 R | 5.037 VB | 0.4.2 Python | 1.0.0 C++ |
| GUI | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||||
| Scripting | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||
| Free binary | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • |
| File formats (Nex) | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | |||
| File formats (HDF5) | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| Rate histogram PSTH | • | • | • | • | • | • | |||||
| Population PSTH | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | |||
| ISI | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||
| Cross-correlograms | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | ||
| Joint spike and stimulus visu. | • | ||||||||||
| STA | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| PCA | • | ||||||||||
| Spectral analysis | • | • | • | • | • | • | |||||
| MaxtEnt (x/x-t) | GLM | • | |||||||||
| Raster generation | • | • | • | ||||||||
| …with Poisson/Non Poisson | • | • | • | ||||||||
| …with VIRTUAL RETINA | • |
Abbreviations for software names (first and last initials) have been chosen for the presentation. Following software is discussed: CX, CHRONUX (Ince et al., 2010); FD, FIND (Meier et al., 2008); NT, NSTAT (Goldberg et al., 2009); SL, SIGTOOL (Lidierth, 2009); NY, NEUROPY (Spacek et al., 2008); OY, OPENELECTROPHY (Garcia and Fourcaud-Trocmé, 2009); ET, ELEPHANT; SR, STAR (Pouzat and Chaffiol, 2009); NE, NEUROEXPLORER; SV, SPYKEVIEWER (Pröpper and Obermayer, 2013); PS, PRANAS. Note that features selected in this table have essentially been chosen according to what PRANAS does. It is not an exhaustive list and information applies to the time of writing. Software we mention can have additional features not commented herein.