Based on the 1993 Neuroscience Meeting Abstract

A NEURON simulation program.

Michael Hines & John W. Moore. Dept. Neurobiology, Duke Univ. Med. Cntr. Durham, NC 27710

NEURON is a nerve simulation program which is designed to solve two kinds of problems: 1) where cable properties of cells play an important role, possibly including extracellular potential close to the membrane, and 2) where cell membrane properties are complex, involving many ion-specific channels and ion accumulation.

NEURON is designed around the notion of continuous cable "sections" which are connected together to form any kind of branched cable and which are endowed with properties which vary continuously with position along the section. The design goal is to keep entirely separate the physical properties of the neuron from the numerical issue of size of spatial compartments.

User defined membrane properties are described by expressing models in terms of kinetic schemes and sets of simultaneous equations. Membrane voltage and states are computed efficiently by compiling these model descriptions and using an implicit integration method optimized for branched structures.

NEURON realizes a tremendous degree of flexibility by using an object oriented interpreter to setup the physical properties of the cables, define the appearance of the graphical interface, control the simulation, and plot the results. The default graphical interface is suitable for initial exploratory simulations, setting parameters, common control of voltage and current stimuli, and graphing variables as a function of time and position.

A sample of the appearance of NEURON is given by: