TOOLS FOR BIOLOGICALLY REALISTIC SIMULATIONS OF NEURAL NETWORKS

When simulating thousands of neurons, using realistic neuron models and with the neurons not necessarily identical, tools for handling the specification of all parameters involved are needed. We have designed a specification language for this purpose. A simulator based on this language has been implemented including tools for running the actual simulations on either a regular Unix workstation or on the Connection Machine (a massively parallel supercomputer). This system has been used to simulate experimentally verified networks (CPG in Lamprey spinal cord) as well as for explorative experiments relating to pattern processing in artificial neural networks.