NeurodataWithoutBorders
Improve documentation of ElectrodeGroup
We are building a tutorial on how to add ElectrodeGroup metadata in neuroconv, and the question has come up: what is the purpose of this object? Why is ElectrodeGroup special?
The documentation is not very clear about its purpose:
https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/nwb-schema/blob/a8127bba98c8df2c4aa10eca0cbbc08c2721b820/core/nwb.ecephys.yaml#L232
"a physical grouping of electrodes"
The pynwb tutorial is also not very specific:
"The electrodes table references a required ElectrodeGroup, which is used to represent a group of electrodes"
@bendichter mentioned that the main use case for this object is grouping electrodes that are intended to be spike sorted together. This is a clear and helpful explanation that gives users enough context to understand how to fill in this metadata.
Should we move forward and add this clarification? Are we missing any other important use cases?
the main use case for this object is grouping electrodes that are intended to be spike sorted together. This is a clear and helpful explanation that gives users enough context to understand how to fill in this metadata.
I think it would be helpful to provide this additional context for using ElectrodeGroup! The only note I have is that I think the wording of the use case is important here. In my experience multiple shanks can still be spike sorted "together", but the shank grouping is provided as an additional input to the sorting software. I think making sure the wording is clear so a user with e.g., 4 shanks in 2 brain regions being spike sorted separately does not interpret it as a recommendation to only use 2 electrode groups.
@rly @oruebel did you have any additional use cases?
