The BEST Toolbox: Increasing Objectivity, Reliability, and Reproducibility in NIBS Research

Hosts: Mr. Umair Hassan and Prof. Til Ole Bergmann, Neuroimaging Center (NIC) of the University Medical Center, and Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR), Mainz

To facilitate objectivity, reliability, and reproducibility of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) studies and to empower students, researchers, and clinicians alike to conduct state-of-the-art multimodal NIBS studies, an automated but yet flexible tool for data collection and analysis is needed.

The Brain Electrophysiological recording and STimulation (BEST) Toolbox is an easy-to-use MATLAB-based open-source software with a powerful graphical user interface (GUI), which allows the user to flexibly design, run, analyze, and share multi-protocol/multi-session NIBS studies, involving transcranial magnetic, electric, and ultrasound stimulation (TMS, tES, TUS) in combination with EMG, EEG, and fMRI.

The BEST toolbox interfaces with a large variety of recording and stimulation devices to analyze data and set stimulation parameters on-the-fly, thereby enabling closed-loop protocols and real-time applications. Its growing functionality includes e.g., TMS motor hotspot search, automated motor threshold estimation, measurement of motor evoked potentials (MEP) and TMS-evoked EEG potentials (TEP), dose-response curves, paired-pulse and dual-coil TMS, rTMS interventions, real-time EEG-triggered stimulation, concurrent TMS-fMRI, etc.