Computer assisted neurophysiological analysis of cell assemblies activity

Abstract A critical feature of brain theories is whether neurons convey a noisy rate code or a precise temporal code. One of most valuable ways to test these theories consists in collecting the electrophysiological activity of cell assembles under several experimental conditions. The sequences of cell discharges—the spike trains—form time series whose dynamics is strongly related to the information processing carried out in the brain areas under study. Our purpose is to provide a user-friendly framework of a ‘Virtual Laboratory’ where computational neuroscience analyses and display of results can be distributed over a computer network, like Internet.