A MATLAB toolbox for accessing and using the neural recording public datasets from the Allen Brain Observatory1.
🗺️ Get oriented and get started with 3 lines of code. You can:
- Open in MATLAB Online
- Enter
>>bot.READMEon your own local/cloud installation
Either will orient you to several live script examples available to guide new users, including demos of neural data analysis & tutorials covering Brain Observatory Toolbox concepts & operations.
You can also individually view (👀) or run (
| Example Type | Data Type | View | Run | Data Type | View | Run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🚀 Quickstart | Calcium Imaging (Ophys) | 👀 | Neuropixels Probe (Ephys) | 👀 | ||
| 🔬 Demo | Calcium Imaging (Ophys) | 👀 | Neuropixels Probe (Ephys) | 👀 | (*) | |
| 👩🏫 Tutorial | Calcium Imaging (Ophys) | 👀 | Neuropixels Probe (Ephys) | 👀 | (*) |
(*) These data-intensive examples are currently recommended for use on local machines or customer cloud instances only, not for MATLAB Online
🚧 The Brain Observatory Toolbox is at an early stage; the interface is not guaranteed stable across the v0.9.x releases.
💬 Questions? Suggestions? Roadblocks? Code contributors are regularly monitoring user-posted GitHub issues & the File Exchange discussion.
Data releases from the Allen Brain Observatory include two datasets of neural activity recordings:
| Dataset | Recording Type | Nickname | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Coding Neuropixels 2 | Large-scale neural probe recordings | "ephys" (electrophysiology) | details |
| Visual Coding 2P 3 | Two-photon calcium imaging | "ophys" (optical physiology) | details |
The Visual Coding datasets are both collected from the living mouse brain during presentation of varying visual stimuli. Technical white papers (see Details for each dataset) provide detailed information about the experimental technicalities and computational pipelines.
The Brain Observatory Toolbox (BOT) provides a uniform interface to access and use the Visual Coding neural datasets.
The BOT interface provides tabular representations of available dataset items and object representations of specific dataset items:
The easiest way to install the Brain Observatory Toolbox is to use the Add-on Explorer:
- Launch the Add-on Explorer
- Search for "Brain Observatory Toolbox"
- Press the "Add" button.
- MATLAB (R2023b or later)
- Image Processing Toolbox (if running the Visual Coding 2P demonstration
OphysDemo.mlx)
Initial engineering work, done by Ethan Meyers and Xinzhu Fang, was supported by the Foundation of Psychocultural Research and Sherman Fairchild Award at Hampshire College and hosted by the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Footnotes
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Copyright 2016 Allen Institute for Brain Science. Allen Brain Observatory. Available from: portal.brain-map.org/explore/circuits. ↩
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Copyright 2019 Allen Institute for Brain Science. Visual Coding Neuropixels Dataset. Available from: portal.brain-map.org/explore/circuits/visual-coding-neuropixels. ↩
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Copyright 2016 Allen Institute for Brain Science. Visual Coding 2P Dataset. Available from: portal.brain-map.org/explore/circuits/visual-coding-2p. ↩