Package: openhdemg
Welcome to openhdemgOverviewopenhdemg is a powerful toolbox for the analysis of HD-EMG recordings.openhdemgis an open-source framework written in Python 3 with many functionalities specifically designed for the analysis of High-Density
Electromyography (HD-EMG) recordings. Some of its main features are listed below, but there is much more to discover! For a full list of available functions, please refer to theAPI referencesection atwww.giacomovalli.com/openhdemg.Loaddecomposed HD-EMG files from various sources, such as .mat and .csv files. This allows to interfaceopenhdemgwith the commonly used softwares like OTBioLab+, DEMUSE, Delsys NeuroMap and potentially with any other software.Visualiseyour EMG or force/reference signal, as well as the motor units' firing times and their action potentials shape.Edityour file changing the reference signal offset, filtering noise, calculating differential derivations and removing unwanted motor units.Analysemotor units' recruitment/derecruitment thresholds, discharge rate, conduction velocity, action potentials amplitude and more...Remove duplicatesbetween different files from the same recording session and analyse them together to increase the number of motor units'.Trackmotor units' across different recording sessions.Savethe results of the analyses and the edited file.Start immediatelyIf you already know how to use Python, that's the way to go! Otherwise, have a look at the tutorial explaining how toSetup your Python working environment.openhdemgcan be easily installed using pip:pipinstallopenhdemgor conda:condainstall-cconda-forgeopenhdemgIf you want an overview of what you can do with theopenhdemglibrary, have a look at theQuick Start section.Good to knowIn addition to the rich set of modules and functions presented in theAPI documentation,openhdemgoffers also a practical graphical user interface (GUI) from which many tasks can be performed without writing a single line of code!After installing theopenhdemgpackage, the GUI can be simply accessed from the command line (check to be into the virtual environment) with:python-mopenhdemg.gui.openhdemg_guiOnce opened, it will look like this. It is cool, isn't it?Why openhdemgTheopenhdemgproject was born in 2022 with the aim to provide the HD-EMG community with a free and open-source framework to analyse motor units' properties.The field of EMG analysis in humans has always been characterized by a lack of available software for signal post-processing and analysis. This has forced users to code their own scripts, which can lead to problems when the scripts are not shared open-source. Why?If different users use different scripts, the results can differ.Any code can contain errors, if the code is not shared, the errors will never be known and them will repeat in the following analyses.There is a significant difference between the methods presented in research papers and the practical implementation of a script. Reproducing a script solely based on written instructions can be challenging, making the reproducibility of a study unrealistic.Anyone who doesn't code, will not be able to analyse the recordings.In order to overcome these problems, we developed a fully transparent framework for the analysis of motor units' properties.This project is intended for the users that already know the Python language, for those willing to learn it and even for those not interested in coding, thanks to a friendly graphical user interface (GUI).Both theopenhdemgproject and its contributors adhere to the Open Science Principles and especially to the idea of public release  of data and other scientific resources necessary for conducting honest research.