Conducting Research in STEM Disciplines with Matlab Software
In the world of STEM research, Matlab presents an exciting opportunity for independent projects, even for students without a lab coat. This programming language, known for its user-friendly interfaces, offers a range of tools that are freely accessible and useful for both neuroscience and molecular biology research.
For neuroscience researchers, Matlab offers a variety of toolboxes. EEGLAB, ERPLAB, and FieldTrip are widely used for processing EEG data, preprocessing, visualization, and analysis of electrophysiological signals. These toolboxes also support event-related potential (ERP) analysis, time-frequency analysis, source reconstruction, and statistical testing.
Gannet, on the other hand, is a MATLAB toolkit designed for analyzing edited single-voxel 1H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) data. It automates the pipeline with minimal user input, making it a valuable tool for MRS data analysis.
In the realm of resting-state fMRI, the ABIDA platform is a popular choice. It integrates features from various platforms, optimized for easier use in clinical research.
While specific MATLAB toolboxes for molecular biology research are less commonly specialized compared to neuroscience, MRS analysis with Gannet is relevant. General computational and image processing toolboxes in Matlab might also be employed but are not explicitly listed in the search results.
The MNE MATLAB toolbox is related to neuroimaging and functional neuro data processing, interoperable with MNE-Python but less actively developed and less feature-complete than the Python version.
Brainstorm, a popular free MATLAB-based application for neuroimaging data analysis, is another valuable resource, offering scripting support for large datasets.
A student, during their first year at Princeton, found themselves drawn to a neuroscience research lab. However, a lack of significant experience in the programming language Matlab posed a challenge. Undeterred, they decided to conduct their own research on epilepsy using Matlab and a dataset of EEG data.
The student utilised the "Classification Learner" app in Matlab to analyse the EEG data and found surprising accuracy in diagnosing epilepsy. Despite the initial hurdles, the student was able to download and use Matlab again through free software links provided by the Office of Information Technology (OIT) website.
This story serves as a testament to the potential of Matlab as a tool for independent research, even for those without extensive programming experience. It also underscores the importance of freely available datasets and tools in Matlab for neuroscience and molecular biology research, such as EEGLab and the Bioinformatics Toolbox, which are not explicitly mentioned in this article.
References: 1. EEG/ERP and electrophysiology toolboxes: EEGLAB, ERPLAB, FieldTrip 2. MRS data analysis: Gannet 3. Resting-state fMRI: ABIDA 4. MNE MATLAB toolbox (less active): MNE tools suite 5. Brainstorm scripting and pipeline tools for neuroimaging
(Written by Kamron Soldozy, Natural Sciences Correspondent)
(This article is related to the "Junior Paper (JP)" section and also discusses lessons from junior independent work in MAE.)
- The student, during their independent work in the Junior Paper (JP) section at Princeton, found a junior paper project on epilepsy research utilizing data-and-cloud-computing tool Matlab.
- During this independent work, the student leveraged the Classification Learner app within Matlab for learning and analyzing EEG data, showcasing the effectiveness of independent work in education-and-self-development and STEM education.
- In the world of neuroscience research, Matlab offers a range of toolboxes like EEGLAB, ERPLAB, FieldTrip, and Gannet, supporting stem-education and independent learning in data-and-cloud-computing.
