Data Folders

The basic structural element of NeuroMatic is the data folder, which resides inside Igor’s local memory known as the “root” directory. NeuroMatic Data Folders contain your acquired/imported/simulated data, Wave-Prefix Subfolders, Tab Subfolders and all other variables, waves and folders necessary to interact with NeuroMatic. If your data was acquired using NeuroMatic’s Clamp Tab, data folders will also contain the Stimulus Protocol Folder used to acquire your data and a copy of the acquisition Notes Folder.

You can browse your data folders using Igor’s Data Browser (Igor Menu/Data/Data Browser) as shown below. Here, the current NeuroMatic Data Folder is “nm19Nov2010c2_001_Search” (red arrow), which has a sequence of waves with prefix “Record”, for a single Channel A. Included in this folder is a Clamp Notes Folder, a Clamp Stimulus Protocol Folder named “Search”, a wave-prefix subfolder named “NMPrefix_Record”, and a Stats Subfolder named “Stats_Record_Set1_A”. If “Info” is checked, and you click on a wave, information about the wave appears at the bottom of the Data Browser. This information includes basic Igor wave information, such as the wave type and size, as well as wave notes created by NeoroMatic.

Wave-Prefix Subfolders

Within each NeuroMatic Data Folder are one or more Wave-Prefix Subfolders that contain variables, waves and folders pertaining to the wave prefix values you enter or select using the Wave-Prefix drop-down menu (2). For example, variables NumChannels and NumWaves are the number of channels and waves pertaining to that particular wave prefix, string variable Set1_SetListA contains a list of Channel A wave names that belong to Set1, and ChanA is a subfolder that contains all the channel display variables for Channel A. Wave-Prefix Subfolders begin with “NMPrefix_” followed by the prefix (e.g. NMPrefix_Record).

Tab Subfolders

>> To improve the organizational structure of NeuroMatic, many waves created by NeuroMatic are now created inside Tab Subfolders which reside in the current NeuroMatic Data Folder. The names of the Tab Subfolders begin with the tab name, such as “Stats_”, “Spike_” or “Event_”. If you do not want NeuroMatic waves to be created inside Tab Subfolders, click the Configs Checkbox on the bottom of the NeuroMatic panel, click the tab of interest and unclick UseSubfolders.

Folder Functions

The following NeuroMatic Data Folder functions can be called via menu items (Igor Menu/NeuroMatic/Data Folder) or the Folder drop-down menu (1) on NeuroMatic’s control panel.

Open Data File(s) – open one or more data files saved on your hard disk drive. Data files can be those created by NeuroMatic (pxp extension), Pclamp Axon Binary Files (abf extension) or Axograph binary files or HDF5 files (requires activation of the HDF5 XOP provided by WaveMetrics). Data files will be imported into individual NeuroMatic Data Folders with names derived from that of the external data files.

Load Waves – import data waves from one or more data files saved on your hard disk drive into a single NeuroMatic Data Folder.

Files containing multiple data waves – choose one or more files created by NeuroMatic (pxp extension), Pclamp Axon Binary Files (abf extension) or Axograph binary files or HDF5 files. Wave names will have an added prefix “DF” followed by a data file sequence number. For example, if you select two files to import, waves from the first file will begin with prefix “DF0” and waves from the second file will begin with prefix “DF1”. This way, if you wish to analyze data from both files, you simply enter “DF” via the Wave-Prefix drop-down menu (2). Or if you wish to analyze data from the two files seperately, you enter “DF0” or “DF1”.

Files containing single data waves – choose one or more Igor Binary, Igor Text, General Text or Delimited Text files. Wave names will be derived from that of the external data files. Note, you can also use Igor’s Load Waves menu options to import your data (Igor Menu/Data/Load Waves). To view and analyze your imported data waves, enter one or more wave prefix names via the Wave-Prefix drop-down menu (2).

New – create a new NeuroMatic Data Folder.

Close – close/kill the current NeuroMatic Data Folder. WARNING: this function will attempt to close all graphs and tables associated with the data folder you are trying to close. The data folder will fail to close if it contains waves that are in use, i.e. waves that are displayed in a graph or table.

Save – save the current NeuroMatic Data Folder to your hard disk drive as an Igor packed or unpacked experiment file, or an HDF5 file. For an Igor packed experiment file, the NeuroMatic data folder will be saved with a “pxp” file extension, which is the same extension for all Igor packed experiment files. Therefore, to make it easier to distinguish between NeuroMatic files and general Igor packed experiment files, you should name your files with the prefix “nm”, for example “nmFolder0.pxp”.

Duplicate – duplicate the current NeuroMatic Data Folder.

Rename – rename the current NeuroMatic Data Folder.

Merge – copy data waves from multiple NeuroMatic Data Folders to a new data folder.