It is possible to have Axo-Axonic & Dendro-Dendritic syn

[aluri]

Is it possible to model any synapse other than a Axo-Dendritic synapse using Neuron?

I want to model certain basic circuits like those described in Gordon Shepherd's 'Synaptic Organization of the Brain' some of which contained Axo-Axonic synapses and even other kinds of synapses like dendro-dendritic types.

[Raj]

In NEURON the axon or soma section has no special status. It should therefore not pose any problems to make synaptic signals from dendrites to axons.

Including the following code (with obvious replacements to conform to your own code) should do the trick (dendro-axonic connection):

In the target cell:

Code: Select all

template TargetCell
public MySynapse
...
create MySoma
objref MySynapse
MySoma MySynapse = new ExpSyn(.5)

...
endtemplate TargetCell

In the source cell:

Code: Select all

template SourceCell
public MyDend
create MyDend 
...
endtemplate SourceCell

and the code for generating the network:

Code: Select all

objref Target, Source, MyNetCon
Target = new TargetCell(...)
Source= new SourceCell(...)

Source.MyDend MyNetCon = new NetCon(&v(.5), Target.MySynapse)

don't forget to indicate which variables in the templates are public, without that you won't be able to access them in the code for building your network.

[aluri]

Thanks Raj.

I was able to implement it.