DrCell – A Software Tool for the Analysis of Cell Signals Recorded with Extracellular Microelectrodes

Authors:
Nick C, Goldhammer M, Bestel R, Steger F, Daus AW, Thielemann C
In:
Source: Other
Publication Date: (2014)
Issue: 7(2): 96-109
Research Area:
Neurobiology
Basic Research
Cells used in publication:
Neuron, hippo/cortical, rat
Species: rat
Tissue Origin: brain
Abstract
Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) have been applied for in vivo and in vitro recording and stimulation of electrogenic cells, namely neurons and cardiac myocytes, for almost four decades. Extracellular recordings using the MEA technique inflict minimum adverse effects on cells and enable long term applications such as implants in brain or heart tissue. Hence, MEAs pose a powerful tool for studying the processes of learning and memory, investigating the pharmacological impacts of drugs and the fundamentals of the basic electrical interface between novel electrode materials and biological tissue. Yet in order to study the areas mentioned above, powerful signal processing and data analysis tools are necessary. In this paper a novel toolbox for the offline analysis of cell signals is presented that allows a variety of parameters to be detected and analyzed. We developed an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that enables users to perform high quality data analysis. The presented MATLAB® based toolbox gives the opportunity to examine a multitude of parameters, such as spike and neural burst timestamps, network bursts, as well as heart beat frequency and signal propagation for cardiomyocytes, signal-to-noise ratio and many more. Additionally a spike-sorting tool is included, offering a powerful tool for cases of multiple cell recordings on a single microelectrode.