About NEURON
NEURON is a professional software simulation environment for computational neuroscience.
NEURON calculates currents, conductances and voltages throughout nerve cells of all types. The user tells NEURON the exact geometry of a virtual neuron, the types of channels in the membranes of the various parts of the neuron and their densities, the ion concentrations inside and out, the number of myelin wraps of the neuron's axon, the temperature, etc. Then NEURON displays voltage signals as a function of time and/or space as these signals travel throughout the virtual neuron. NEURON can also display the current and conductance changes that underlie the voltages.
NEURON provides implementation for progress in computational neuroscience. It is used by professional computational neuroscience investigators throughout the world. It has been growing, improving, and adding new functionalities for over three decades in the hands of Michael Hines, pictured here. Mike started NEURON in the Department of Physiology at Duke University, continued it in the Duke Department of Neurobiology, and now is a member of the Department of Computer Science at Yale University. Mastering its many possibilities is best accomplished by taking a course in NEURON, consulting the NEURON book, and practicing with it. However, Mike Hines is continuing to reduce energy barriers for newcomers to use NEURON by providing graphical tools that enable the user to import channels and cell morphologies, or make designer channels and designer morphologies. Up-to-date information about NEURON and NEURON workshops may be found at its website,
http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/.
Neurons in Action (NIA) makes customized simulations by selecting some of NEURON's features.
In
NIA, a subset of NEURON's simulation tools has been adapted for a student to use without needing to know anything about programming. If you wish, you can use
NIA as a portal into NEURON and progress to designing simulations for your own use in research or teaching.
NEURON is free and available over the Internet.
NEURON downloads are available on the Internet sites both at Duke
(http://neuron.duke.edu) and at Yale (http://www.neuron.yale.edu). NEURON
is the only neuronal simulator that runs on the three major platforms: Unix, Mac, and Windows. It has been designed with a graphical interface for flexibility and ease of use while incorporating state-of-the-art algorithms for speed and accuracy.