A machine learning toolbox for the analysis of sharp-wave ripples reveals common waveform features across species

Abstract

The study of sharp-wave ripples has advanced our understanding of memory function, and their alteration in neurological conditions such as epilepsy is considered a biomarker of dysfunction. Sharp-wave ripples exhibit diverse waveforms and properties that cannot be fully characterized by spectral methods alone. Here, we describe a toolbox of machine-learning models for automatic detection and analysis of these events. The machine-learning architectures, which resulted from a crowdsourced hackathon, are able to capture a wealth of ripple features recorded in the dorsal hippocampus of mice across awake and sleep conditions. When applied to data from the macaque hippocampus, these models are able to generalize detection and reveal shared properties across species. We hereby provide a user-friendly open-source toolbox for model use and extension, which can help to accelerate and standardize analysis of sharp-wave ripples, lowering the threshold for its adoption in biomedical applications.