AUTHOR=Richert Micah , Nageswaran Jayram M., Dutt Nikil , Krichmar Jeffrey L. TITLE=An Efficient Simulation Environment for Modeling Large-Scale Cortical Processing JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroinformatics VOLUME=5 YEAR=2011 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroinformatics/articles/10.3389/fninf.2011.00019 DOI=10.3389/fninf.2011.00019 ISSN=1662-5196 ABSTRACT=

We have developed a spiking neural network simulator, which is both easy to use and computationally efficient, for the generation of large-scale computational neuroscience models. The simulator implements current or conductance based Izhikevich neuron networks, having spike-timing dependent plasticity and short-term plasticity. It uses a standard network construction interface. The simulator allows for execution on either GPUs or CPUs. The simulator, which is written in C/C++, allows for both fine grain and coarse grain specificity of a host of parameters. We demonstrate the ease of use and computational efficiency of this model by implementing a large-scale model of cortical areas V1, V4, and area MT. The complete model, which has 138,240 neurons and approximately 30 million synapses, runs in real-time on an off-the-shelf GPU. The simulator source code, as well as the source code for the cortical model examples is publicly available.