What would you like to see added to NeuroConv?

I would like to be able to add a "trials" field to metadata and have it automatically write a trials table to the NWB file.

Is your feature request related to a problem?

I saw the following exchange on the new chatbot:

bot:

Hi! What can I help you with?

user:

How can I convert an Open Ephys folder to NWB?

bot:

To convert an Open Ephys folder to NWB, you can use the OpenEphysRecordingInterface from the NeuroConv library. Here are the steps to do this:
[correct response]

user:

How can I add trials?

bot:

To add trials to your NWB file during the conversion process, you can extend the metadata dictionary to include trial information. Here’s an example of how you can do this:

Define your trials data: You need to create a list of dictionaries where each dictionary represents a trial and includes the necessary information such as start time, stop time, and any other relevant metadata.

Update the metadata dictionary with the trials information: You can add the trials information to the metadata dictionary under the "trials" key.

Run the conversion with the updated metadata:

Here’s an example of how you can do this in Python:

from datetime import datetime
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from pathlib import Path
from neuroconv.datainterfaces import OpenEphysRecordingInterface

Set the folder path to your Open Ephys data

folder_path = "path/to/your/openephys/data"

Initialize the interface

interface = OpenEphysRecordingInterface(folder_path=folder_path)

Extract metadata from the source files

metadata = interface.get_metadata()

Set the session start time if it cannot be inferred automatically

session_start_time = datetime(2020, 1, 1, 12, 30, 0, tzinfo=ZoneInfo("US/Pacific"))
metadata["NWBFile"].update(session_start_time=session_start_time)

Define your trials data

trials = [
{"start_time": 0.0, "stop_time": 1.0, "stimulus": "stimulus_1"},
{"start_time": 1.5, "stop_time": 2.5, "stimulus": "stimulus_2"},
# Add more trials as needed
]

Add trials information to the metadata

metadata["trials"] = {
"colnames": ["start_time", "stop_time", "stimulus"],
"table": trials
}

Set the path to save the NWB file

nwbfile_path = "path/to/save/your_file.nwb"

Run the conversion

interface.run_conversion(nwbfile_path=nwbfile_path, metadata=metadata)
In this example, the trials list contains dictionaries with start_time, stop_time, and stimulus keys. You can add more keys as needed to include additional trial metadata.

Make sure to replace "path/to/your/openephys/data" and "path/to/save/your_file.nwb" with the actual paths on your system.

If you have any more questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask! Have a great day!

This is not accurate. But honestly, I think it's a good idea, and it wouldn't be hard to implement.

Do you have any interest in helping implement the feature?

Yes.

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