MC_Rack

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Overview

MC_Rack has been Multi Channel Systems working horse for almost two decades. Designed to operate in vivo and in vitro data acquisition systems with up to 256 channels, it has been improved and optimized with the help of hundreds of customers over the years. To ensure maximum flexibility, virtual instruments can be freely combined to generate an optimized recording configuration for every type of experiment. The same features are available for online and offline data analysis.

Features include:

On line filtering
Spike detection and sorting
Spike analysis
Control of electrical stimulation
Real time feedback
On line referencing
Analysis of EPSPs
Display and direct export of analysis parameters

The given features make MC_Rack an extremely powerful and adaptable tool for all applications.

Please click on the description tab above to learn more about the powerful features of MC_Rack.

Description

Experimental Control:

Data can be acquired continuously, as spike cutouts, or as triggered sweeps, controlled by internally generated triggers or externally applied TTL pulses. Trigger outputs can be used to synchronize other devices, and analog data, for example from a patch clamp system, can be recorded time locked with the MCS electrode array system data in the same file. Files can be split automatically during recording, to avoid GB size files without missing a single data point.

Stimulation and Real Time Feedback:

In MCS devices with integrated stimulator, the stimulation parameters and electrodes can be controlled by MC_Rack. Furthermore, the software offers a simple user interface to set up event triggered real time closed loop stimulation paradigms with latencies around only 1ms between event and feedback.

Data Analysis

Spikes can be detected and sorted individually on all channels online. Spike parameters are analyzed and plotted for all channels simultaneously, either event based or in discrete time bins. Spontaneous or evoked filed potentials can also be analyzed and numerous parameters, like amplitude, minima, maxima, and their relative time points can be extracted and displayed simultaneously. Cardiac and neuronal signals can be analyzed and the results can be visualized in numerous ways.

Offline data analysis offers the same features as online, and the additional option to generate new files with additional information from already existing files, like generating a file with spike timestamps extracted from a raw data file.

Data Export

The native MC_Rack file format *.mcd will open directly in numerous third party analysis software packages. Additionally, the free export tools MC_DataTool and Multi Channel Data Manager allow to export *.mcd data to ASCII, Neuroexplorer format (*.nex), Axon Binary Format (*.abf), Spike2 format (*.ced) and the Matlab and Python compatible HDF5. See an example video in the media tab.