A robust data-driven approach to the decoding of pyloric neuron activity

The combination of intra and extra-cellular recording of small neuronal circuits such as stomatogastric nervous systems of the crab (Cancer borealis) is well documented and routinely practised. Voltage sensitive dye imaging (VSDi) is a promising technology for the simultaneous monitoring of neuronal activities in such a system. However, integrating data obtained from optical VSDi and electrophysiological recording of the lateral ventricular nerve (lvn) is a complex and exacting task. Our early work demonstrated some of the concepts and principle involved. In this paper, we examine and report on the results obtained from the application of signal processing techniques to three datasets for which we had VSDi and lvn data. Whilst significant challenges remain, we show that such an approach offers the possibility of real-time monitoring using automated analysis of VSDi data streams without the requirement for either extracellular (lvn) or intracellular recording.