Epoch Counts

This analysis is very similar to Perievent Histograms. The only distinction is that, instead of calculating bin counts for consecutive bins of the same size, Epoch Counts analysis can calculate bin counts for bins (epochs) of any size. Epochs can be of different lengths and can overlap.

Parameters

Parameter	Description
Reference Type	Specifies if the analysis will use a single or multiple reference events.
Reference	Specifies a reference neuron or event (or a group of reference neurons or events).
Epochs	A table of epochs in seconds.
No Selfcount	An option not to count reference events if the target event is the same as the reference event (prevents a histogram to have a huge peak at zero when calculating PSTH versus itself).
Select Data	If Select Data is From Time Range, only the data from the specified (by Select Data From and Select Data To parameters) time range will be used in analysis. See also Data Selection Options.
Select Data From	Start of the time range in seconds.
Select Data To	End of the time range in seconds.
Int. filter type	Specifies if the analysis will use a single or multiple interval filters.
Interval filter	Specifies the interval filter(s) that will be used to preselect data before analysis. See also Data Selection Options.
Add to Results / Bin left	An option to add an additional vector (containing a left edge of each epoch) to the matrix of numerical results.
Add to Results / Bin right	An option to add an additional vector (containing a right edge of each epoch) to the matrix of numerical results.
Send to Matlab	An option to send the matrix of numerical results to Matlab. See also Matlab Options.
Matrix Name	Specifies the name of the results matrix in Matlab workspace.
Matlab command	Specifies a Matlab command that is executed after the numerical results are sent to Matlab.
Send to Excel	An option to send numerical results or summary of numerical results to Excel. See also Excel Options.
Sheet Name	The name of the worksheet in Excel where to copy the numerical results.
TopLeft	Specifies the Excel cell where the results are copied. Should be in the form CR where C is Excel column name, R is the row number. For example, A1 is the top-left cell in the worksheet.

Summary of Numerical Results

The following information is available in the Summary of Numerical Results

Column	Description
Variable	Variable name.
Reference	The name of the reference event.
NumRefEvents	The number of reference events.
YMin	Minimum epoch count for this variable
YMax	Maximum epoch count for this variable
Filter Length	The length of the interval filter.

Algorithm

Let ref[i] be the array of timestamps of the reference event, ts[i] be the spike train (each ts is the timestamp) and epochs are specified as EpochStart[j], EpochEnd[j].

For each timestamp ref[k]:

1. calculate the distances from this event (or spike) to all the spikes in the spike train:

d[i] = ts[i] - ref[k]

2. for each i:

if d[i] is inside the first epoch, increment the counter for the first epoch:

if d[i] >= EpochStart[1] and d[i] < EpochEnd[1]
then epochcount[1] = epochcount[1] +1

if d[i] is inside the second epoch, increment the counter for the second epoch:

if d[i] >= EpochStart[2] and d[i] < EpochEnd[2]
then epochcount[2] = epochcount[2] +1

and so on… .