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@INPROCEEDINGS{Yegenoglu:255984,
author = {Yegenoglu, Alper and Denker, Michael and Grün, Sonja and
Phan, Long Duc and Davison, Andrew and Holstein, Detlef},
title = {{E}lephant – {O}pen-{S}ource {T}ool for the {A}nalysis of
{E}lectrophysiological {D}ata {S}ets},
reportid = {FZJ-2015-06042},
pages = {26},
year = {2015},
abstract = {The need for reproducible research has become a topic of
intense discussion in the neurosciences. Reproducibility is
based on building well-defined workflows leading to
documented, traceable analysis steps. In recent years
software tools (e.g., Neurotools [1], spykeutils [2],
OpenElectrophy [3]) have been developed to analyze
electrophysiological data. However, many tools tend to
specialize in particular types of analysis and do not use a
common data model, forcing the user to rely on multiple
tools during an analysis. Often the code base of such tools
is not written in a modular way, which complicates the
combination and comparison of different analysis
methods.Here we introduce the Electrophysiology Analysis
Toolkit (Elephant) as a community-centered initiative
(http://neuralensemble.org/elephant/). Elephant is an
easy-to-use, open source Python toolkit, that offers a broad
range of functions for analyzing multi-scale data of brain
dynamics from experiments and brain simulations. The focus
is the analysis of electrical activity, ranging from single
unit or massively parallel spike train data to population
signals such as the local field potentials. The scope of the
library covers analysis methods for time series data (e.g.,
signal processing, spectral analysis), spike trains (e.g.,
spike train correlation, spike pattern analysis) and methods
for relating both signal types (e.g., spike-triggered
averaging). In the context of hypothesis testing, utility
modules for the generation of realizations of stochastic
processes and of surrogate signals are implemented.We chose
to use Neo [4] as the underlying data model. This guarantees
compatibility within the toolkit, but also provides access
to various file I/O modules to access data in both open and
proprietary formats. We demonstrate the usage of Elephant in
the form of use cases, and outline how to parallelize
analyses using the toolkit. In particular, we illustrate the
use of Elephant and the task-system on the Unified Portal
(UP) [5] of the Human Brain Project which will be the
central platform for collaboration by managing complex
analysis workflows in a provenance-tracked fashion. Using
the web interface of the UP, neuroscientists can launch
either generic analysis scripts made available to the
community to analyze their data, or alternatively upload and
run custom-tailored analysis programs based on Neo and
Elephant. The collaborative nature of the portal will enable
scientists to easily share and reproduce an analysis inside
or even outside their collaborative groups on the UP.
Elephant is released on the python package index PyPI [6],
and documentation is available at [7]. Please feel free to
contribute your analysis tools into Elephant![1]
http://neuralensemble.org/NeuroTools/[2]
http://spykeutils.readthedocs.org/en/0.4.1/[3]
http://neuralensemble.org/OpenElectrophy/[4] Garcia et al.
(2014) Front. Neuroinform 8:10,
doi:10.3389/fninf.2014.00010[5]
$https://developer.humanbrainproject.eu/docs/Unified\%20Portal/latest/[6]$
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/elephant[7]
http://elephant.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.htm},
month = {Sep},
date = {2015-09-17},
organization = {INM Retreat 2015, Juelich (Germany),
17 Sep 2015 - 18 Sep 2015},
cin = {INM-6 / IAS-6},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)INM-6-20090406 / I:(DE-Juel1)IAS-6-20130828},
pnm = {571 - Connectivity and Activity (POF3-571) / HBP - The
Human Brain Project (604102) / SMHB - Supercomputing and
Modelling for the Human Brain (HGF-SMHB-2013-2017) /
BRAINSCALES - Brain-inspired multiscale computation in
neuromorphic hybrid systems (269921)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF3-571 / G:(EU-Grant)604102 /
G:(DE-Juel1)HGF-SMHB-2013-2017 / G:(EU-Grant)269921},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)8},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/255984},
}