NeuroMatic Data Folders

NeuroMatic data folders contain your acquired / imported data, channel subfolders (i.e. ChanA) to hold the channel display variables, and all other variables and waves necessary to interact with NeuroMatic, such as the Set and Group waves. If data was acquired using the Clamp tab, data folders will also contain the stimulus folder used to acquire the data and a copy of the Notes folder.

You can view / browse your data folders using Igor’s Data Browser (Data > Data Browser) as shown above.

It is best to change between NeuroMatic data folders using the Folder drop-down menu on NeuroMatic’s control panel, rather than Igor’s data browser selector (red arrow) since in the latter case NeuroMatic will ask to confirm the change in folder.

Folder Functions

The following NeuroMatic (NM) data folder functions can be called via NeuroMatic > Data Folder, or the Folder drop-down menu on NeuroMatic’s control panel.

New - create a new NM data folder.

Open - open a NM data folder that has been saved to disk (IgorBin or NMBin).

Save - save the current NM data folder to disk.

Close - close / kill the current NM data folder.

Duplicate - duplicate the current NM data folder.

Rename - rename the current NM data folder.

Change - change the current NM data folder.

Merge - copy data waves from multiple NM data folders to a new data folder.

Convert - convert a NMBin (NeuroMatic binary) file to an IgorBin (Igor binary) file, for NM data folders acquired with the Clamp Tab.

Importing Data

Use NeuroMatic’s import function to import your data (NeuroMatic > Import Waves). Or open a new data folder (NeuroMatic > Data Folder > New) and use Igor to import your data (Data > Load Waves). If you use Igor to import your data, add the prefix name of your data waves to NeuroMatic’s Wave Prefix list using “Other” in NeuroMatic’s CurrentPrefix drop-down menu. NeuroMatic may ask you to confirm the number of channels and waves.

If you import Axograph or Pclamp data into a new NeuroMatic data folder, NeuroMatic will automatically rename the folder with a name based on the external data file if the name is not already in use.

You can import several data files to the same NeuroMatic data folder by selecting import to “this data folder” rather than to a new data folder. Each time you import, a new Set_Data wave is automatically generated, allowing you to select and analyze each imported data set independently (see Sets).

Data Wave Names

Data waves are named by the following convention: Prefix Name + Channel Letter + Sequence Number. In the above figure, data from the first recorded channel are stored in waves RecordA0, RecordA1, etc, where “A” stands for the first channel. If there is more than one recorded channel, data will be stored in RecordB, C, D, etc. Note, the wave sequence number starts at 0 to conform to Igor Pro’s wave index convention of counting from 0.

Global Variables

NeuroMatic data folders contain several global variables (v), strings (s) and waves (w). Some of these you may find useful when creating your own macros.

NumChannels	(v) number of recorded channels
NumWaves	(v) number of waves per channel
SamplesPerWave	(v) sample points per wave
SampleInterval	(v) time sample interval (msec)
CurrentChan	(v) currently active channel number
CurrentWave	(v) currently active wave number
CurrentFile	(s) external file name including path
DataFileType	(s) data file type (IgorBin, NMBin, Axograph or Pclamp)
AcqMode	(s) data acquisition mode
CurrentPrefix	(s) currently active wave prefix name
WavePrefix	(s) prefix name of acquired/imported data
WavSelect	(w) set of selected waves
ChanSelect	(w) set of selected channels
ChanWaveList	(w) lists of available waves for each channel