FieldTrip

FieldTrip is the MATLAB software toolbox for MEG, EEG and iEEG analysis that is being developed at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour in Nijmegen, the Netherlands together with collaborating institutes.

The toolbox offers advanced analysis methods of MEG, EEG, and invasive electrophysiological data, such as time-frequency analysis, source reconstruction using dipoles, distributed sources and beamformers and non-parametric statistical testing. It supports the data formats of all major MEG systems (CTF, Neuromag/Elekta/Megin, BTi/4D, Yokogawa/Ricoh, FieldLine) and of most popular EEG systems, and new formats can be added easily. FieldTrip contains high-level functions that you can use to construct your own analysis protocols in MATLAB. Furthermore, it easily allows methods researchers to incorporate new methods for EEG/MEG analysis.

For more information, documentation, and tutorials, please visit https://www.fieldtriptoolbox.org

Installation

To install the FieldTrip toolbox on your computer, you can clone this repository or download the zip file, unzip it, and add it to your MATLAB path. Subsequently you call the ft_defaults function, which will add the required subdirectories to the path.

We recommend that you add the addpath(...) and the ft_defaults command to your startup.m file. See also https://www.fieldtriptoolbox.org/faq/installation/

Note that you should not use addpath(genpath(...)) and we recommend not to use the "add with subdirectories" button in the graphical path setup tool, as there are a number of external toolboxes and backward compatibility directories that you should not add to your path. If those directories are needed, then ft_defaults and ft_hastoolbox will take care of them.

Copyright

The FieldTrip software is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See the file COPYING for more details.

The functions in the FieldTrip toolbox are copyrighted by their respective authors:

• Robert Oostenveld, DCCN, FCDC, SMI, MBFYS
• Jan-Mathijs Schoffelen, DCCN, MPI, CCNi, FCDC
• Pascal Fries, FCDC
• Eric Maris, DCC, FCDC
• Arjen Stolk, DCCN
• Eelke Spaak, DCCN
• Ingrid Nieuwenhuis, DCCN, FCDC
• Jens Schwarzbach, FCDC
• Jorn Horschig, DCCN
• Lilla Magyari, MPI, DCCN
• Markus Siegel, FCDC, UKE
• Martin Vinck, DCCN, SILS
• Ole Jensen, FCDC
• Roemer van der Meij, DCC
• Saskia Haegens, DCCN, FCDC
• Vladimir Litvak, UCL
• and many other contributors

The authors are or were working at a range of academic institutions:

• Copyright (C) 2008-2025, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, The Netherlands (DCCN, DCC, DCN)
• Copyright (C) 2014-2025, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden (NatMEG)
• Copyright (C) 2012-2018, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands (MPI)
• Copyright (C) 2008-2017, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, UK (UCL)
• Copyright (C) 2010-2013, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam (SILS)
• Copyright (C) 2008-2009, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Glasgow, United Kingdom (CCNi)
• Copyright (C) 2009-2009, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN)
• Copyright (C) 2003-2008, F.C. Donders Centre, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands (FCDC)
• Copyright (C) 2004-2007, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, The Netherlands (NICI)
• Copyright (C) 2004-2005, Universitatsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany (UKE)
• Copyright (C) 2003-2004, Center for Sensory Motor Interaction, University Aalborg, Denmark (SMI)
• Copyright (C) 1999-2003, Department of Medical Physics, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands (MBFYS)

The FieldTrip software is a toolbox, i.e. a library with functions, which in turn an depend on other functions. The release of this toolbox includes functions from other toolboxes that are covered under their respective licenses. See fieldtrip/external for details. Unauthorised copying and distribution of functions that are not explicitly covered by the GPL is not allowed.