Naturalistic Experimental Design Environment for neuroscientists
==== NEDE (pronounced "Neddy") is a scripting suite designed at Columbia University to leverage the capabilities of the Unity3D game engine into the neuroscientific study of realistic scenarios. Unity is one of the most widely used 3D game engines - its extensive documentation and user forums make it relatively easy to pick up, and its flexible scripting abilities make it highly customizable. NEDE adds a series of scripts designed to provide the features that neuroscience experiments require: randomized stimuli, precise timing, and peripheral hardware. NEDE's capabilities include:
- Real-time interface with a research-grade eye tracker (Unity Pro required)
- Synchronization with research-grade EEG systems
- Randomization of custom stimuli (images/objects) and their positions
- Runtime GUI to let experimenter change experimental settings
- Frame-by-frame recording of camera position for analysis
- Replay capability superimposing eye position on the subject's original view
A paper detailing NEDE's capabilities has been accepted to the Journal of Neuroscience Methods and can be seen here. If you use NEDE in your research, be sure to cite the paper:
David C. Jangraw, Ansh Johri, Meron Gribetz, Paul Sajda, NEDE: An open-source scripting suite for developing experiments in 3D virtual environments, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, Available online 23 July 2014, ISSN 0165-0270, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2014.06.033.
The original source code released with NEDE is Copyright (C) 2014 David Jangraw, and has been made available under the GNU general public license (GPL).
==== This repository contains working versions of the NEDE code that are not yet available on the main NEDE site, NEDE wiki. The use of a Git repository allows those users who feel comfortable with Git to create and share their own versions of the software (forks) without replacing or obscuring the original, general-purpose NEDE scripts (master branch).
Please see the main NEDE site for more information on NEDE's capabilities, 3D environment and stimulus downloads, tutorials, and a user forum.
*This site was formerly located at "nede-neuro.org", but we regrettably allowed the domain to expire.