Hodgkin-Huxley-like Model Neuron

Demo simulator of a firing biological neuron.

Description

An interactive MATLAB-based demo simulation of the electrophysiological behavior of a biological neuron is presented and documented. The differential equations which describe the temporal evolution of the membrane voltage in a biophysical model neuron, are introduced and briefly discussed in the documentation, together with the default numerical parameters employed in the demo. Several references and fundamental pointers to the literature are provided, with the aim of pointing interested users to further readings.

This project was developed for a multi-media presentation given for an invited talk, and in the present public release it is intended as a tool for educational purposes. Since the relevant source codes are included and fully commented, this software might also be conveniently employed as a development example for exploring the many advantages of MATLAB data visualization, graphical user interfaces (GUI) and MEX interfaces.

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 6.1 (R12.1)
• Other requirements: The demo software package is available for Windows, Linux and as a stand-alone application.

[Rob Campbell]

On my 64 bit Ubuntu box I had to pass the C code through ccmtcnvt in order to get it to compile. Once done, the GUI worked. A little while later, however, (whilst writing this comment) I lost keyboard input and this didn't return until the HH simulator crashed spontaneously.

Overall, good job!
It would be nice if the display were to update more smoothly (in smaller steps, resembling an oscilloscope) and if there were buttons to increment the mean and SD. The ability to add EPSPs and IPSPs at specific rates and magnitudes would also be nice.