Anatomical localization of electrophysiological recording sites by co-ordinate transformation.

A method for estimating the anatomical locations of the units recorded in electrophysiological mapping experiments is described. A total of three locations must be marked by dye injections or electrolytic lesions and identified in tissue sections. From those locations, equations are derived to translate, scale, and rotate the three-dimensional co-ordinates of the recording sites, so that they are correct for a second, three-dimensional co-ordinate system based on the anatomy of the mapped structure. There is no limit to the number of recording sites that can be localized. This differs from methods that require a dye injection or lesion to be made at the exact location at which a particular unit was recorded. The accuracy of the transformed co-ordinates is limited by the accuracy with which the co-ordinates can be measured: in test measurements and in the experiments for which this algorithm was developed, the computed co-ordinates were typically accurate to within 100 microns or less.