NEO stands for Neural Ensemble Objects and is a project to provide common classes and concepts for dealing with electro-physiological (in vivo and/or simulated) data to facilitate collaborative software/algorithm development. In particular Neo provides: a set a classes for data representation with precise definitions, an IO module with a simple API, documentation, and a set of examples.

NEO offers support for reading data from numerous proprietary file formats (e.g. Spike2, Plexon, AlphaOmega, BlackRock, Axon), read/write support for various open formats (e.g. KlustaKwik, Elan, WinEdr, WinWcp, PyNN), as well as support common file formats, such as HDF5 with Neo-structured content (NeoHDF5, NeoMatlab).

Neo's IO facilities can be seen as a pure-Python and open-source Neuroshare replacement.