Section: Software and Platforms

Event Neural Assembly Simulation

Participants : Bruno Cessac, Sélim Kraria [Inria DREAM] , Gaia Lombardi, Hassan Nasser, Wahiba Tahouali.

Enas is a library providing numerical tools for the simulation of neural networks and the analysis of spike trains either coming from neural simulators or from biological experiments. The goal is to provide statistical methods allowing to estimate a spatio-temporal statistical model of spike train statistics (including thus pairwise spatio-temporal correlations, but also higher order correlations) from experimental rasters. More precisely, the algorithms are based on our theoretical results on spike trains statistical analysis via Gibbs distributions. We estimate a parametric Gibbs potential optimally characterizing the statistics of empirical spike trains (by minimisation of the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the empirical measure and the Gibbs measure). From this, classical statistical indicators such as firing rate, correlations, higher order moments and statistical entropy are obtained. Also, the form of the Gibbs potential provides essential informations on the underlying neural network and its structure. This method does not only allows us to estimate the spikes statistics but also to compare different models, thus answering such questions about the neural code as: are correlations (or time synchrony or a given set of spike patterns,...) significant with respect to rate coding?

Compared to existing software (Pandora ; Sigtool ; Spyke Viewer ; Orbital Spikes ) Enas offers new computational methods taking into account time constraints in neural networks (such as memory effects), based on theoretical methods rooted in statistical physics and applied mathematics. The algorithms used are based on linear programming, nonlinear parameter estimations, statistical methods. The C/C++ code has been organized as “bean java” to ease its use by programmers non specialized in advanced object programming. As a consequence the code is distributed in the form of an include source for the lightest and the most universal integration into users codes.

Event neural assembly simulation is developed under CeCILL C licence

APP logiciel Enas: IDDN.FR.OO1.360008.000.S.P.2009.000.10600.

It has benefited from the support of an ADT Inria from 2011 to 2013.

The software is freely downloadable at http://enas.gforge.inria.fr/v3/download.html .

Website: http://enas.gforge.inria.fr/