The Neural Simulation Tool - NEST

NEST is a simulator for spiking neural network models that focuses on the dynamics, size and structure of neural systems rather than on the exact morphology of individual neurons.

A NEST simulation tries to follow the logic of an electrophysiological experiment that takes place inside a computer with the difference that the neural system to be investigated must be defined by the experimenter.

NEST is ideal for networks of spiking neurons of any size, for example:

• Models of information processing, e.g., in the visual or auditory cortex of mammals,
• Models of network activity dynamics, e.g., laminar cortical networks or balanced random networks,
• Models of learning and plasticity.

Key features of NEST

• NEST provides a Python interface or a stand-alone application
• NEST provides a large collection of neurons and synapse models
• NEST provides numerous example network scripts along with tutorials and guides to help you develop your simulation
• NEST has a large community of experienced developers and users; NEST was first released in 1994 under the name SYNOD, and has been extended and improved ever since
• NEST is extensible: you can extend NEST by adding your own modules
• NEST is scalable: Use NEST on your laptop or the largest supercomputers
• NEST is memory efficient: It makes the best use of your multi-core computer and compute clusters with minimal user intervention
• NEST is an open source project and is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2 or later
• NEST employs continuous integration workflows in order to maintain high code quality standards for correct and reproducible simulations

Documentation

Please visit our online documentation for details on installing and using NEST.

Cite NEST

If you use NEST as part of your research, please cite the version of NEST you used. The full citation for each release can be found on Zenodo

For general citations, please use

Gewaltig M-O & Diesmann M (2007) NEST (Neural Simulation Tool) Scholarpedia 2(4):1430.

Contact

If you need help or would like to discuss an idea or issue, join our maling list, where we encourage active participation from our developers and users to share their knowledge and experience with NEST.

You can find other ways to get in touch here.

Contribute

NEST is built on an active community and we welcome contributions to our code and documentation.

For bug reports, feature requests, documentation improvements, or other issues, you can create a GitHub issue,

For working with NEST code and documentation, you can find guidelines for contributions in our documentation

Publications

You can find a list of NEST related publications here.

License

NEST is open source software and is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2 or later.

General information on the NEST Initiative can be found at its homepage at https://www.nest-initiative.org.