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Research software engineering for open neuroscience 🧠

CatalystNeuro is a research software engineering consultancy that helps neuroscience labs share their data and software with the broader scientific community. We specialize in data standardization through Neurodata Without Borders (NWB), collaboration with the DANDI Archive, and development of analysis tools that make working with neurophysiology data easier.

Neuroscience data is becoming larger and more complex every day. The data we collect and the software we write can be valuable well beyond the scope of the original project, but sharing these resources effectively is a high bar for individual labs to reach on their own. We help bridge that gap, handling the data engineering challenges so researchers can focus on the science.

We believe that effective packaging and sharing of data and software will enable new scientific workflows that build upon and combine existing studies, leading to deeper understanding of the brain and faster discovery of treatments for neurological disorders.

About Us 🧑‍💻

CatalystNeuro is a globally distributed team of neuroscientists who are also software developers. We care deeply about helping neuroscience adopt modern data engineering practices. We work closely with labs to convert their data to standardized formats, and we collaborate with tool developers to improve usability and adoption. See our team here.

Key Software Projects 📈

We work collaboratively on open source projects, and many of the tools we contribute to live in other GitHub organizations. Here are some of the projects we develop and maintain:

Data standardization and sharing

  • NeuroConv: Automates conversion of data from common formats into NWB for distribution on the DANDI Archive.
  • NWB Inspector: Validates NWB files against best practices and the NWB schema to ensure data quality.
  • NWB GUIDE: A user-friendly graphical interface for converting data to NWB without writing code.

Visualization

  • NWB Widgets: Automatic, interactive visualizations of NWB data, integrated with DANDI.
  • neurosift: Browser-based interactive visualizations for exploring NWB files and DANDI datasets.

Analysis tools

  • SpikeInterface: A community-driven unified framework for spike sorting electrophysiology data.
  • VAME: Variational Animal Motion Encoding for analyzing behavioral videos.
  • voluseg: Segmentation of volumetric calcium imaging data.
  • GuPPY: Analysis of fiber photometry data.

Emerging work

  • torch_brain: Foundation models for neurophysiology data.

Links 🔗

🌐 Website  |   Bluesky  |   X

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  1. neuroconv neuroconv Public

    Create NWB files by converting and combining neural data in proprietary formats and adding essential metadata.

    Python 73 33

  2. roiextractors roiextractors Public

    Python-based module for extracting from, converting between, and handling optical imaging data from several file formats. Inspired by SpikeInterface.

    Python 16 11

  3. ecogVIS ecogVIS Public

    Time series visualizer and data processing tools for Electrocorticography (ECoG) signals stored in NWB files, for Python.

    Python 27 18

  4. lazyslice lazyslice Public

    Lazy transposing and slicing of h5py and Zarr Datasets

    Python 3 3

  5. cookiecutter-my-lab-to-nwb-template cookiecutter-my-lab-to-nwb-template Public

    The standard cookiecutter template for all lab-specific NWB conversions.

    Python 2 1

Repositories

Showing 10 of 224 repositories
  • catalystneuro/dan-lab-to-nwb’s past year of commit activity
    Python 0 MIT 0 1 0 Updated Feb 24, 2026
  • nwb-video-widgets Public

    Interactive Jupyter widgets for playing synchronized videos and visualizing pose estimation data from NWB files (local and DANDI)

    catalystneuro/nwb-video-widgets’s past year of commit activity
    Python 1 MIT 0 3 2 Updated Feb 24, 2026
  • neuroconv Public

    Create NWB files by converting and combining neural data in proprietary formats and adding essential metadata.

    catalystneuro/neuroconv’s past year of commit activity
    Python 73 BSD-3-Clause 33 109 22 Updated Feb 24, 2026
  • ndx-spikesorting Public

    NWB extension to store spike sorting outputs and extensions

    catalystneuro/ndx-spikesorting’s past year of commit activity
    Python 0 MIT 0 3 1 Updated Feb 24, 2026
  • IBL-widefield-to-nwb Public

    NWB Conversion project for the IBL widefield dataset

    catalystneuro/IBL-widefield-to-nwb’s past year of commit activity
    Jupyter Notebook 0 MIT 0 6 5 Updated Feb 24, 2026
  • nwbinspector Public Forked from NeurodataWithoutBorders/nwbinspector

    Tool to help inspect NWB files for compliance with NWB Best Practices

    catalystneuro/nwbinspector’s past year of commit activity
    Python 0 12 0 0 Updated Feb 23, 2026
  • IBL-to-nwb Public

    Conversion of IBL data to NWB format.

    catalystneuro/IBL-to-nwb’s past year of commit activity
    Python 3 BSD-3-Clause 6 9 3 Updated Feb 23, 2026
  • roiextractors Public

    Python-based module for extracting from, converting between, and handling optical imaging data from several file formats. Inspired by SpikeInterface.

    catalystneuro/roiextractors’s past year of commit activity
    Python 16 BSD-3-Clause 11 23 (1 issue needs help) 8 Updated Feb 23, 2026
  • catalystneuro/dandi_torch_brain_tutorials’s past year of commit activity
    Jupyter Notebook 0 MIT 0 0 0 Updated Feb 23, 2026
  • IBL-mesoscope-to-nwb Public

    NWB Conversion project for IBL mesoscope dataset

    catalystneuro/IBL-mesoscope-to-nwb’s past year of commit activity
    Jupyter Notebook 0 MIT 0 2 3 Updated Feb 23, 2026

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