NeuroDevSim is a Neural Development Simulator for Linux of MacOS environments. It is a parallel and phenomenological computational framework to grow large numbers of neuronal morphologies (and resultant microcircuits) simultaneously according to growth-rules expressed in terms of interactions with the environment and internal variables:
- Growth of 3D neuronal morphologies: neurons grow starting from a soma that can sprout dendrites and axons. Growth is embodied in fronts which mimic the functionality of growth cones: they can elongate, branch or terminate.
- Cell migration: somata can migrate before sprouting dendrites. They can make a trailing axon during this migration.
- Microcircuits: neurons are generated together in a simulated volume. With the addition of connections rules and synapses circuits emerge.
- Interactions: growth can be influenced by environmental cues. Most obvious is guidance through repulsion or attraction by other neurons or chemical cues. Existing structures can block growth: physical overlap between structures is not allowed.
Access the Documentation at https://cns-oist.github.io/NeuroDevSim/index.html or locally as http:docs/build/html/index.html
This software is described in the following preprint, please cite it when using NeuroDevSim:
E. De Schutter: Efficient simulation of neural development using shared memory parallelization. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.17.512465v1