Neural Spike Train Analysis Toolbox for Matlab

📖 Start here: 5-minute introduction page — hero, install, five runnable snippets covering simulation → fitting → KS goodness-of-fit → decoding → SSGLM, plus a paper-example thumbnail gallery and v1.4.0 release highlights.

nSTAT is the reference MATLAB implementation of the point-process / state-space framework for spike-train analysis: PP-GLM fitting (Poisson and binomial), time-rescaling KS goodness-of-fit, PPAF (point-process adaptive filter — the spike-train analog of the Kalman filter), PPHF (hybrid discrete + continuous-state filter), SSGLM (state-space GLM for trial-drifting coefficients), and PPLFP (multi-modal spike + LFP sensor-fusion filter).

For the foundational point-process and state-space algorithms implemented here, see the original sources: Brown, Barbieri, Ventura, Kass & Frank 2002 (time-rescaling theorem); Eden, Frank, Barbieri, Solo & Brown 2004 (PPAF); Srinivasan, Eden, Mitter & Brown 2007 (PPHF); Czanner et al. 2008 (SSGLM); and the 2012 nSTAT paper itself for the canonical toolbox treatment.

nSTAT also provides tools for Gaussian signals (correlation analysis, Kalman filter / smoother) for continuous normally-distributed neural signals such as LFP / EEG / ECoG. Although created with neural signal processing in mind, the SignalObj / Covariate abstractions can be applied to any discrete and continuous signal types.

For new work in Python, see nSTAT-python. This MATLAB repository remains the canonical site for reproducing Cajigas et al. 2012 and is the lab's MATLAB-side reference implementation.

The current release version of nSTAT can be downloaded from https://github.com/cajigaslab/nSTAT/. Lab websites:

• Neuroscience Statistics Research Laboratory: https://www.neurostat.mit.edu
• RESToRe Lab: https://www.med.upenn.edu/cajigaslab/

Download the latest nSTAT-<version>.mltbx from the Releases page and double-click it in the MATLAB Desktop. MATLAB's Add-On Manager handles the path setup, the toolbox metadata, and update notifications. After install, run nSTAT_Install('DownloadExampleData', true) once to fetch the figshare paper-example dataset (separate from the code).

1. Clone this repository and open MATLAB.
2. Change directory to the repository root (the folder containing nSTAT_Install.m).
3. Run the installer:

nSTAT_Install

When the paper-example dataset is not present, the installer now prompts to download it from figshare into the repository data/ folder.

Noninteractive install:

nSTAT_Install('DownloadExampleData',true)

Optional installer flags:

nSTAT_Install('RebuildDocSearch', true, 'CleanUserPathPrefs', false, 'DownloadExampleData', 'prompt')

• RebuildDocSearch rebuilds the help search database in helpfiles/.
• CleanUserPathPrefs removes stale user MATLAB path entries.
• DownloadExampleData accepts true/'always', false/'never', or 'prompt'.

Quickstart (MATLAB 2025b):

cd('/path/to/nSTAT')
nSTAT_Install('RebuildDocSearch',true,'CleanUserPathPrefs',true);
addpath(fullfile(pwd,'tools'));
run_all_checks('GenerateBaseline',false,'CheckParity',true,'RunTests',true,'PublishDocs',false,'Style','legacy');

Canonical source files:

• helpfiles/nSTATPaperExamples.mlx (preferred narrative source)
• helpfiles/nSTATPaperExamples.m (script source used for extraction)

Single command to regenerate every standalone paper example and figure:

cd('/path/to/nSTAT')
addpath(genpath(pwd));
build_paper_examples;

This produces docs/figures/<example_id>/... and docs/figures/manifest.json. All images are generated from MATLAB code in this repository; no figures are copied from the publication PDF.

Example	Thumbnail	What question it answers	Run command	Links
Example 01		Do mEPSCs follow constant vs piecewise Poisson firing under Mg2+ washout?	example01_mepsc_poisson('ExportFigures',true,'ExportDir',fullfile(pwd,'docs','figures','example01'));	Script · Figures
Example 02		How do explicit whisker stimulus and spike history improve thalamic GLM fits?	example02_whisker_stimulus_thalamus('ExportFigures',true,'ExportDir',fullfile(pwd,'docs','figures','example02'));	Script · Figures
Example 03		How do PSTH and SSGLM capture within-trial and across-trial dynamics?	example03_psth_and_ssglm('ExportFigures',true,'ExportDir',fullfile(pwd,'docs','figures','example03'));	Script · Figures
Example 04		Which receptive-field basis (Gaussian vs Zernike) better fits place cells?	example04_place_cells_continuous_stimulus('ExportFigures',true,'ExportDir',fullfile(pwd,'docs','figures','example04'));	Script · Figures
Example 05		How well do adaptive/hybrid point-process filters decode stimulus and reach state?	example05_decoding_ppaf_pphf('ExportFigures',true,'ExportDir',fullfile(pwd,'docs','figures','example05'));	Script · Figures

Expanded paper-example index and figure gallery:

• docs/paper_examples.md

Plot style policy:

% Modern readability-focused plots (default)
nstat.setPlotStyle('modern');

% Legacy visual style for strict reproduction
nstat.setPlotStyle('legacy');

Rendered help documentation (GitHub Pages):

• https://cajigaslab.github.io/nSTAT/

For mathematical and programmatic details of the toolbox, see:

Cajigas I, Malik WQ, Brown EN. nSTAT: Open-source neural spike train analysis toolbox for Matlab. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 211: 245–264, Nov. 2012 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2012.08.009 PMID: 22981419

To keep terminology and workflows consistent with the 2012 toolbox paper, the MATLAB help system includes a dedicated mapping page:

• helpfiles/PaperOverview.m (published as PaperOverview.html)

This page ties major toolbox components to the paper's workflow categories:

• Class hierarchy and object model (SignalObj, Covariate, Trial, Analysis, FitResult, DecodingAlgorithms)
• Fitting and assessment workflow (GLM fitting, diagnostics, summaries)
• Simulation workflow (conditional intensity and thinning examples)
• Decoding workflow (univariate/bivariate and history-aware decoding)
• Example-to-paper section mapping via nSTATPaperExamples

If you use nSTAT in your work, please remember to cite the above paper in any publications. nSTAT is protected by the GPL v2 Open Source License.

The code repository for nSTAT is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/cajigaslab/nSTAT. The paper-example dataset is distributed separately from the Git repository:

• Figshare dataset DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4834640.v3
• Paper DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2012.08.009

A comprehensive 5-phase code audit identified and fixed 67 bugs across 8 core files. All changes are tagged with inline % FIX: comments for easy review. See AUDIT_REPORT.md for full details.

Critical bugs fixed:

• FitResult.m — Time-rescaling KS test used sampleRate as bin width instead of 1/sampleRate, invalidating goodness-of-fit for any sampleRate != 1
• DecodingAlgorithms.m — isa(condNum,'nan') always returned false, so NaN condition numbers were never caught and singular matrices passed unchecked through PPAF/PPHF decoding; ExplambdaDeltaCubed used .^2 instead of .^3, corrupting higher-order filter corrections
• CIF.m — symvar reordered variables alphabetically, but all callers passed arguments in varIn order, causing silent argument mismatch in matlabFunction-generated handles for non-alphabetical variable names
• SignalObj.m — findPeaks('minima') silently returned maxima; findGlobalPeak('minima') always crashed due to sOBj typo; handle aliasing in times/rdivide/ldivide mutated input signals
• nspikeTrain.m — Burst detection had off-by-one index error and wrong append order

Code quality improvements:

• 22 eval → feval conversions (SignalObj.m)
• 11 silent catch → named exception captures
• 7 roundn → round replacements (removes Mapping Toolbox dependency)
• 3 log(0) guards, division-by-zero guards, floating-point index fixes
• fitType validation in CIF constructor
• Deprecated function annotations (histc, simget)

A follow-up wave of work in May 2026 added correctness fixes, architectural cleanup, and CI-replacing local gates. The headline items are summarized below; see RELEASE_NOTES.md for full per-PR detail.

Additional correctness fixes (Phase 0):

• FitResult.m / Analysis.m — Bernoulli log-likelihood missing log wrap on 1−λΔ (commits acd57c7, d1e96cf)
• Analysis.m — KS U-clamping before ks_stat computation inflated KS statistics (ef01a82); DT-correction branch was unreachable for typical inputs (f460aa8); ksdiscrete ignored caller-set RNG seed (f2307e9)
• FitResult.m — multi-result λ branch indexed result 1 for all results (1520034); plotSeqCorr had no non-finite guard for U-transform overflow (f5b5734)
• DecodingAlgorithms.m — PPAF goal-directed predict time-indexing (3ffebd5); PPHF A/Q time-index + missing x0/Pi0 goal fusion (bc5f879, 1bcb63e, ba7069a)

Architectural cleanup (Phase 3):

• +nstat/+decoding/ package: 8 cluster classes (PPAF, PPHF, PPLFP, SSGLM, KalmanFilter, UKF, KF_EM, PointProcessEM) extracted from the 10860-line DecodingAlgorithms.m, which is now a 1189-line facade with 47 deprecation shims.
• mPPCO_* methods renamed to PPLFP_* (paper §4.B.7 alignment; mPPCO_* retained as deprecation shims).
• Woodbury matrix-inversion update step centralized in +nstat/+decoding/+internal/computeGainMatrix.m.
• nstat.Defaults class for centralized tolerances (EM_TolAbs=1e-3, EM_MaxIter=100, DTRegimeBound=0.4, …).

New capabilities (Phase 3.5 + 4):

• LinearCIF — canonical-link CIF with closed-form gradient and Hessian; drop-in replacement for symbolic CIF when the Symbolic Math Toolbox is undesirable (Poisson and binomial supported).
• History.raisedCosine(K, tMin, tMax) — Pillow 2008 log-spaced raised-cosine basis.
• PPAF.PPDecode_updateIterated / PPDecode_updateLinearIterated — iterated-Laplace PPAF update with prior-gradient correction term.

Local test gate (no MATLAB CI):

The team's MathWorks license does not extend to GitHub-hosted runners, so the test gate is local. Run tools/run_unit_tests.sh (20 unit tests) and tools/check_readme_figures.sh (README figure parity) before pushing changes that touch core code. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full developer workflow.

Comprehensive audit (2026-05-20):

A four-phase audit covered help-system integrity, cross-document drift, sibling-bug pattern coverage, and a one-command deploy gate. The audit also added tools/predeploy.sh (now superseded by buildtool predeploy) and tools/stamp_release.m.

The standalone Python port now lives in a separate repository:

• https://github.com/cajigaslab/nSTAT-python

This nSTAT repository is MATLAB-focused and retains:

• Original MATLAB class/source files
• MATLAB helpfiles and help index (helpfiles/helptoc.xml)
• MATLAB example workflows, including .mlx examples