Spike Sorting and Reproducibility for Next Generation Electrophysiology

The analysis of extracellular recordings is a computationally and conceptually complex task with multiple sources of error and bias that can affect subsequent data interpretation. The advent of high-density extracellular micro-electrode arrays (MEAs) now allows recording from hundreds to thousands of channels that poses significant challenges. Additionally, current analysis workflows lack standardisation, and few attempts have been made to make perform systematic comparisons between different solutions and approaches.

This workshop will bring together electrophysiologists and developers of tools for the analysis of extracellular recordings, to discuss new approaches to analyse such data, attempts to validate and perform quality control, and to add elements of reproducibility and provenance to workflows. If there is interest, the workshop will also include hands-on spike sorting tutorials for Mountainsort, Ironclust (formerly JRClust), HS2 and SpyKingCircus. Bring your own data or use the example data provided.

The meeting will consist of a series of invited talks and discussion sessions on the topics of spike sorting and reproducible data analysis. We invite poster presentations to be held on 24. June.

Invited Speakers

Alessio Buccino, Oslo Espen Hagen, Oslo Felix Franke, ETHZ (tbc) Samuel Garcia, CNRS James Jun, Flatiron Institute Jeremy Magland, Flatiron Institute André Marques Smith, UCL Olivier Marre, Institut de la vision Hernan G Rey, Leicester (tbc) Evelyne Sernagor, Newcastle Olivier Winter, Champalimaud Pierre Yger, Institut de la vision more speakers tba

Registration and Submission

Registration is free, but there is a charge of £30 for the workshop dinner at the Surgeons Quarter. We are inviting submission of post abstracts. Registration closes on 30. April, or when the event is fully booked.

Travel

By train the nearest station is Edinburgh Waverley, which is less than a 15 minute walk from the Informatics Forum. See National Rail Enquiries for train information. For those coming from further afield, information about travel to and from Edinburgh Airport is available. A taxi to the city centre from the airport costs about 22GBP to 24GBP one way. There is an express bus from the airport called Airlink that terminates in the city centre (7.50GBP return), and a tram travelling the same route (8.50GBP return, get off at Princess street). Journey time is about 30 minutes.

Organisers

Matthias Hennig, Edinburgh Cole Hurwitz, Edinburgh Jeremy Magland, Flatiron Alessio Buccino, Oslo