Abstract
An inexpensive microcomputer‐based system has been developed for fast digital synthesis of complex sound stimuli, recording of neural activity, and interactive on‐line histogramming and plotting of response properties. The hardware requirements for stand‐alone synthesis and spike recording capability are an Apple Macintosh II, a GW Instruments data acquisition card, and a modest amount of interfacing and signal conditioning electronics. Off‐line analysis of acquired data files can be performed on any current Macintosh. Stimuli can be computed synthetic sounds or digitized natural sounds; both types are presented at sampling rates of up to 100k samples/s with concurrent timing of spikes at 10‐μs resolution. The system is especially suited for experiments in which sounds must be rapidly resynthesized as a stimulus parameter is changed under manual or automatic control. A modular software design allows installation of new synthesis and analysis routines, or new drivers for alternate hardware interfaces. Synthesis parameters and raw spiketime data are saved to disk files in a format that allows exact recreation of stimuli and precise correlation of spikes with temporal features in those stimuli. [Work supported by NINCDS.]
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