Converting Data To NWB

The goal of NWB is to package experiment data with the metadata necessary to analyze the data. All of the data from a particular session goes into a single file. This includes the neurophysiology data itself, but also includes other data such as information about the data acquisition, experiment design, experimental subject, and behavior of that subject. The NWB core schema defines data containers for common data objects in neurophysiology data, including: extracellular electrophysiology (e.g., Neuropixels probes), optical physiology (e.g., two-photon imaging), intracellular electrophysiology (e.g., patch clamping), and behavior.

All of these data types and relationships are defined in the NWB Schema using the HDMF specification language. NWB is faced with the challenge of supporting a large variety of different experiment types, so the data types and relationships can get quite complex. For this reason, the NWB development team provides tools and APIs, described below, to help users easily and efficiently read and write NWB files.

Converting neurophysiology data to NWB involves:

1. Reading data and metadata from source files
2. Adding necessary metadata
3. Writing data and metadata to NWB following best practices
4. Packaging large datasets for optimal cloud deployment

The following sections start with the most automated and convenient approaches and proceed to more programming-heavy and customizable solutions. Each tool offers different levels of flexibility and control, allowing you to choose the right approach for your specific needs.