Wavemetrics IGOR Pro 6 11 Portable CRACKED
Billy Cregin
The package also installs two command-line-interface (CLI) scripts,igorbinarywave and igorpackedexperiment which can be used to dump filesto stdout. You should install the [CLI] extra for them to fully work:
The recent excitement over quickly developing imaging methods and optogenetics often hides the fact that electrophysiology is still the workhorse of neuroscience. Indeed, most imaging and optogenetics experiments rely on electrophysiology, either throughout the experiment or during characterisation and as control. But even when not combined with any optical methods, electrophysiology is an extremely powerful toolset.
One important aspect of electrophysiology is that it has become possible to set up a rig, or indeed an entire lab, on a very limited budget. Looking through the websites of many suppliers that might not be the first impression a researcher has. Often, amplifiers, digitisers and software are tied into bundles, which are often perceived as expensive. While the simplicity of these integrated systems justifies the price, not all researchers have that level of funds available. But with a bit of effort, it is possible to find lower or zero cost alternatives.
Amplifiers for electrophysiology are available from a wide range of manufacturers, many providing simple but good (e.g. with low noise, fast voltage-clamp) amplifiers. Most of these simpler amplifiers are not computer controlled, which makes them software independent.
The main risks of this type of freeware stem from the fact that they are researcher written: often the functionality is limited to that needed by the authors. Also, most of these programs do not come with technical support. Indeed, quite a few solutions do not even have full documentation. And finally, the development life of the programs tends to be determined by the academic life of the programmer, leading to many solutions that have not been updated in a decade.
Despite the bleak impression that the potential risks might inspire, sifting through the many options available, it is possible to find software packages that have sufficient support from the universities or funding agencies to offer reliability, documentation and in some rare cases even support. In this article, we introduce several free electrophysiology solutions that we believe meet these criteria. We realise this list is not complete, but hope readers will find it a useful starting point for their own exploration.
The most obvious feature that any electrophysiology software needs to have is the ability to acquire data from the amplifier via a digitiser. Along the same lines, the software needs to be able to output voltages via the digitiser, to allow control of the amplifier. Therefore, the software must enable users to configure the digitiser and ideally read information from the amplifier (e.g. filter and gain settings). This configuration can range from rudimentary (e.g. manually assigning digitiser inputs and outputs to the corresponding amplifier inputs and outputs) to nearly full automation, including automatic readout of the amplifier settings over telegraph signals or USB.
The configuration of inputs and outputs is something that is only done when initially setting up a recording rig or when making larger changes, so ease of use here is good, but a more complex setup routine is not necessarily a deal breaker.
More crucial is the last mandatory feature of any electrophysiology software: the ability to generate, store and ideally sequence measurement protocols. Comparable to experimental protocols in molecular biology or biochemistry, a protocol in electrophysiology is a sequence of experimental steps (e.g. depolarize a cell by a defined amount, activate a stimulation electrode, etc.)
Most electrophysiology software provides powerful protocol editors to allow users to set up experiments, ranging from basic assignment of stimulation times or voltage steps, up to more intricate protocols that inject realistic waveforms into cells or deliver varying pulse patterns.
Not just for patch-clamp recordings, a simple means of testing the electrode resistance, seal resistance and basic cell properties (e.g. membrane capacitance, input resistance) is very useful. While it is possible to set up a simple protocol that delivers the required voltage test pulse, a function that runs independently of any protocol and potentially provides a direct read out of the relevant parameters makes life easier.
As mentioned above, generating and managing protocols is function that nearly every user will need from an electrophysiology software. On the other hand, not everyone will need a means of automatically running sequences of protocols. Nonetheless, it is a very convenient function to have for many experiment types. Also useful is the ability to define time intervals between different protocols in a sequence.
All the features discussed above are ones that should be considered important to have included in the actual electrophysiology software (if they are indeed needed). None of them are easily achieved by using additional software. In contrast to that, there are functions that are commonly handled by additional software, that some electrophysiology software solutions integrate, with the aim of providing tighter integration.
Things such as camera control and image acquisition, sample stage and micromanipulator control, perfusion control or online analysis fall into this category. In general, these are functions that are well addressed by dedicated software, but some experimental workflows benefit from the tight integration with the standard electrophysiology functionality, and thus being able to control everything from a single interface.
Ultimately, as usual in experimental research, the best fitting software will be determined by the actual experimental needs. Beyond the fundamental functions, different researchers will have different requirements.
A good example for this is protocol sequencing: Researchers working on plasticity experiments will find sequencing of different protocols (e.g. test stimulation, plasticity induction, test stimulation) convenient, and will commonly require the ability to easily define time intervals between repetitions and different protocols in the sequence. On the other hand, users studying ion channels will want a means of defining sequences of multiphasic voltage steps (e.g. for measuring tail currents) but will be less interested in inter-repetition timing.
Below, we introduce several software solutions for electrophysiology. As already mentioned, this list is far from complete and not intended as an endorsement of the individual projects, but as an overview over the different levels of solutions that are available. We start by introducing dedicated electrophysiology software, ranging from software targeting patch-clamp recordings, to more general electrophysiology. After that, we discuss examples of customisable solutions that require more effort from the user but bring the advantage of higher adaptability. Finally, we introduce a few examples of specialized software solutions aimed at specific applications.
As the name suggests, WinWCP is a Windows software initially developed for whole-cell patch-clamp. Written by Dr John Dempster of Strathclyde University in Glasgow, UK, the software has been continuously under development for over two decades. While the software was developed with patch-clamp recordings in mind, the range of applications it is well-suited for stretches to any microelectrode technique that relies on single electrodes (rather than electrode arrays).
WinWCP is equipped with a powerful protocol editor, that allows the user to generate involved sequences of stimuli within a protocol, but does not allow sequencing of multiple protocols. The one feature that sets WinWCP apart from nearly all other electrophysiology software is the support of nearly all digitiser brands commonly used in patch-clamp electrophysiology, including outdated models of several of these brands.
In addition to the data acquisition capabilities, WinWCP brings a wide range of data analysis routines. This covers a full range of classic cell-physiological methods (e.g. non-stationary noise analysis) as well as basic statistics on responses. Importantly, many of these measurements can be used for online analysis.
In contrast to most other solutions, it is a standalone software, not requiring MATLAB, Igor Pro, or LabVIEW to be installed to run, potentially saving license fees. The possible downside to this is that the software is not easily extendable.
DataPro is implemented in Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com), a data analysis and graphing environment often used in patch-clamp labs. Due to the openness of the code, it is possible to add extensions and develop specialised measurement protocols. In addition, the Igor Pro functionality makes implementing online data analysis that runs during the experiment straightforward. This will be of particular interest to researchers performing long-term plasticity experiments.
WaveSurfer is an extensible electrophysiology suite developed by Dr Adam Taylor at Janelia Farm Research Campus. Initially released in 2013, it has strong support from multiple labs at Janelia Farm, all but ensuring future development.
Being open source and written in MATLAB, it is straightforward to add required analysis or visualisation routines, including online analysis. The software is designed to allow such custom routines to be called at defined time point during the acquisition. The result is that WaveSurfer allows closed loop experiments (in 'soft' real time, latency usually
ACQ4 is an extensible general neurophysiology software solution, having been developed by Dr Luke Campagnola at different institutions over the past years. The software is written in Python and open source, allowing for easy extension by the user to suit specific experimental needs. For digitisation, it relies on a wide range of National Instruments hardware.
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