Figure 3

Fully automated online classifier. A - After the period of “TEST” acquisition, which starts once for each recording site, the classification of newly arriving spikes is continual. The control panel on the left-hand side permits some adjustments to automatic thresholding and spline interpolation parameters, depending on the digitalization rate of acquisition. Numerical information about the number of spikes and single units, as well as their waveforms, are instantly available to the researcher; B – interface window of online monitoring. This is the most innovative part of our procedure. To ensure good performance we gave the option of sharing most resource-dependent processes, like extraction of PCs and their FCM-classification, between two different processors. In order to achieve this goal we created two separated subprograms (VI 1 and VI 2), running in parallel and linked via UDP protocol, for the transmission of the reduced number of extracted features (PCs) together with a time of spike occurrence, which is reverse-reconstructed and reproduced right after event classification. These two VIs, being processor-dependent, can be run on the same computer when a limited number of recording electrodes is considered. Since the latest versions of LabVIEW (LabVIEW-2009 or higher) can effectively treat multi-core processor architecture and parallel-loop execution, the FSPS software can run on the same computer, sharing the power of multi-core processor (Intel Core i5-2430 M, 2.4 GHz). However, an Ethernet connection may also be useful when experimental conditions necessitate distant online monitoring.