blackrock.md

title	tags
Getting started with Blackrock data	dataformat blackrock lfp spike

Getting started with Blackrock data

The specifications of the Blackrock file formats can be found on the company's website. Blackrock files come in 2 flavors. One file type has the extension .nev, and contains information about extracellularly recorded spiking activity. The other file type has as extension .nsX, with X any number between 1 and 9. These files contain continuously sampled data, e.g., local field potentials.

To read Blackrock data, you will need the NPMK toolbox. The latest version is available from https://github.com/BlackrockMicrosystems/NPMK.

Set the path

To get started, you should add the FieldTrip main directory to your path, and execute the ft_defaults function, which sets the defaults and configures up the minimal required path settings. See also this frequently asked question.

addpath <path_to_fieldtrip>
ft_defaults

Reading spike data

To read spike data from .nev files, you would do the following

spike = ft_read_spike('yourfile.nev')

This returns the spike timestamps and waveforms in a format according to ft_datatype_spike.

Reading continuous LFP data

To read continuous LFP data from .nsX files, you can use the following high-level FieldTrip code

cfg = [];
cfg.dataset = 'yourfile.nsX'
% you can specify additional preprocessing options, such as filters
data = ft_preprocessing(cfg)

This returns the LFP data in a format according to ft_datatype_raw.

You can also use the low-level reading functions like this

hdr = ft_read_header ('yourfile.nsX')
dat = ft_read_data   ('yourfile.nsX')
evt = ft_read_event  ('yourfile.nev')  % note that the nsX file does not contain trigger events, but the corresponding nev file does

See this FAQ for more details about the high-level and low-level functions.