Spike sorting in multi-channel extracellular recordings of retinas

Spike sorting is a prerequisite for studying the multi-channel extracellular recordings. A new method is developed for spike sorting in multi-channel extracellular recordings of retinas. Based on the assumption that noise follows Gaussian distribution, spike templates are constructed based on principal component analysis and subtractive clustering, then a template matching procedure is applied to choose the best-fit template or templates combination for overlapping spikes so that after subtracting the template or templates combination from the spike event, the sum of squared residue follows Chi-square distribution. Artificial spike trains are used to assess the performance of the proposed method.