Neural Modeling: Tools and Simulators

Modeling tools and simulators

• Genesis
• Neuron
• Conical (no longer under development)
• SpikeNet: a neural simulator for modeling large networks of integrate and fire neurons (C; source code available upon request?)
• spnet: a neural simulator for modeling large networks of neurons (C++)
  • SPNet++: modified version of spnet with MATLAB interface (C++)
• CSIM: A neural Circuit SIMulator (C++ code with MATLAB interface)
• SequenceNet: a neural network architecture for learning temporal information
• Amygdala: software for simulating spiking neural networks (C++)
• HHsim: Graphical Hodgkin-Huxley Simulator
• Neural Viewer (C++; no longer under development; no source code available)
• Biological Neural Networks (BNN) Toolbox (MATLAB)
• Alexandria
• Animal: a spiking neural network that learns to play chess (C++; no source code available)
• Metacat: a self-watching cognitive architecture for analogy-making and high-level perception
• Neural Networks at your Fingertips; not a model, but a collection of source code examples for various neural networks

What would I want from a framework or a simulator?

1. It needs to implement biologically plausible models
2. It needs to be fast enough to model tens of thousands on neurons with 1ms step (#1 and #2 usually don't come together)
3. It needs to provide an interface for developing simulations and monitoring their execution with real-time visualization (ideally as good as Neural Viewer does) and network activity diagrams
4. It needs to be easily configurable. All network parameters and their visualization should be compactly specified
5. It should support various sensory and motor systems
6. It should provide a comprehensive set of networks to play with