cluster cutting from csc files

[chris]

Hello,

We use Neuralynx to record units with a glass electrode, so we hunt for cells throughout recording, and usually manage ~5-10 min recordings per cell (before it bursts) before looking for the next cell. Thus our spike waveforms, amplitudes, etc. are continually changing, and there is often behavioral noise in the record. We just record raw CSC files, and not .dat spike files, as seems to be required for loading files into Spike Sort. I'm not sure how we could generate .dat spike files during recording, as there is so much amplitude/waveform variability and noise for any automatic sorting program to work during recording (unless I'm not understanding .dat files). Is it somehow possible to use the program to do off-line spike sorting from CSC files?

Thanks,

Chris C.
McGill University

p.s. I just discovered CSC spike extractor which does the job. However, only (thousands and thousands) of artifacts are visible in Spike Sort and I have yet to find a neuron. To reduce this, is it possible to set my own thresholds in the spike extractor- particularly for each recording session? A recording session being a period of CSC where acquisition was made, between long periods of blank data on the timestamp record when recording was not on. Each recording session represents a new neuron, and new baseline noise level, so each really needs its own thresholds.