CaImAn

Hot off the press in eLife, Andrea Giovannucci and colleagues have shared their open-source software library, CaImAn, for one and two-photon Calcium Imaging data Analysis.

In vivo calcium imaging has gained popularity in recent years for its ability to record large quantities of neural activity from multiple brain areas over extended time periods. With advanced tools for recording and collecting data comes large quantities of data. With large datasets comes a need for streamlined ways to analyze it. Giovannucci and colleagues have developed and shared a toolbox for analyzing complex calcium imaging datasets. CaImAn, developed in the open-source Python language (with optional implementation in MATLAB), is designed to correct for motion, estimate spikes, detect new neurons, and assess neuronal activity and locations in a given timeframe. The software can be used on pre-recorded data or can also enabled for real-time analysis. CaImAn is available to download with examples from GitHub, and more information can be obtained through reading the aforementioned manuscript.

 This research tool was created by your colleagues. Please acknowledge the Principal Investigator, cite the article in which the tool was described, and include an RRID in the Materials and Methods of your future publications.  Project portal RRID:SCR_021477; Software RRID:SCR_021533