Comparison of SCAN and CURRY.
 

If you are a current SCAN user and you are considering an upgrade to the CURRY Neuroimaging Suite (or CURRY 7), we recommend that you do so, in the majority of instances.

CURRY 7 Modules. CURRY 7 is modular. You do not need to purchase all of the licenses (modules). The SCAN Full license is equivalent to the Acquisition and Signal Processing modules. It is a minor procedure to add additional licenses in the future.

Speed. The most striking difference you will encounter is the speed with which you can process data in CURRY 7. In SCAN, you had to save intermediate data files at virtually every step in the processing sequence. In CURRY 7, the "transforms" are applied in place. That is, parameter settings are applied immediately in most instances. Not only does this save time, it more importantly allows you to assess the effects the parameter settings immediately. For example, filtering effects are seen immediately as you change the filtering parameters. Different types of artifact reduction are seen immediately, letting you see which technique is the most effective.

Instead of saving the modified data files at every step, you may instead save parameter settings. When you open the file again, you have the option to apply the same parameters, thereby restoring the data file with the modifications. The original data files are never modified. You can of course save preliminary or final files when desired.

Familiarization. Any software package that has a wide range of functionality faces the challenge of familiarization with new users. In SCAN, you basically had to just learn where things were and how to use them. In CURRY 7, you can access the Workflow display. This has a list of the most frequently used options. Clicking on one will take you to that part of the software. This makes the initial familiarization more user-friendly. Additionally, context-sensitive help is available throughout. Position the mouse and click a button to go to the corresponding details in the User Guide. The CURRY 7 Tutorials provide step-by-step instructions for most of the common procedures. All of these are designed to make your mastery of the program proceed as quickly and easily as possible.

Increased Functionality. CURRY 7 has many capabilities that are not in SCAN. Depending in some cases on the licenses you have, you will be able to do the following:
 

•    Nearly all of the capabilities that are found offline can be used online
•    Perform artifact reduction with greater ease and with more reduction methods
•    Perform conditional averaging (e.g., include epochs only if the preceding or subsequent event was or was not a certain stimulus or response event)
•    Perform Template Matching
•    Create averages from the continuous data without the intervening epoched files, if desired; create multiple averages simultaneously
•    Exclude epochs from the average based on SNR measures
•    See results in improved 2D and 3D displays
•    Compute STFFT and basic wavelets
•    Perform Coherence analyses with adjustable lag (phase) times
•    Use non-parametric topographical ANOVAs to compare groups, or to compare event types within a single subject
•    The Report function can serve as a log book, or laboratory notebook, saving procedures and results (these are saved as rtf or txt files).

Differences between SCAN and CURRY 7

Automation. CURRY 7 uses macros instead of the TCL batch files in SCAN. Macros are easily recorded and easily applied across multiple data files. Macros do not have the extended functionality that is inherent with the TCL language, but they are sufficient for most tasks. There is no way to convert TCL batch files to Macros.

Event Related Band Power and Coherence. ERBP and ERCoh, as they exist in SCAN, are not [yet] included in CURRY 7.

Spatial Filtering. Spatial Filtering, as it is used in SCAN, is not available in CURRY 7. It is, however, much easier in CURRY 7 to use PCA and ICA with user-determined numbers of components to project, than it is in EDIT.

Filtering. Filtering in CURRY 7 is slightly different from filtering in EDIT, and it may not be possible to match exactly the filters between the two. They will be very close, and the differences may be negligible, but if you intend to combine data from EDIT with data from CURRY 7, it would be important to determine if there are any systematic differences.

Statistics. The non-parametric topographic ANOVAs used in CURRY 7 are significantly advanced in comparison to the t and z scores used in EDIT. There are [currently] no correlation statistics in CURRY 7.

Source Reconstruction. If you are performing source reconstruction now with Source 2 (in SCAN), or Source 5 (independent from SCAN), you will find far greater functionality in CURRY 7.

In the majority of cases, the algorithms used in SCAN are the same as those used in CURRY 7. Nevertheless, if you are planning to combine data across SCAN and CURRY 7, you should analyze a few files using both programs, with identical parameter settings, and verify that there are either no or very negligible differences. (This is a general precaution that should be applied with any major upgrade).

Most of the SCAN users who have switched to CURRY 7 - as well as we ourselves - have a difficult time going back to SCAN. The speed and the ability to see the immediate effects of the "transforms" make it very hard to go back!

Contact sales@neuroscan.com to schedule an online demonstration if you wish to see CURRY 7 in action (possibly using your own data files).