No subject

[jbower@smaug.bbb.caltech.edu]

                            ANNOUNCEMENT

                   GENESIS in research and education

For the last five years, our laboratory, with funding from the National
Science Foundation, has been supporting development and use of a GEneral
NEural SImulation System called GENESIS.  GENESIS is primarily for use in
constructing realistic simulations of neurobiologically accurate cells and
networks, although it has been used to construct neural models at all
levels of detail.  This simulation system is now used at institutions
throughout the world, and served as the basis for 22 publications
originating outside Caltech in 1994. GENESIS is available for free from
Caltech (see below). 

This message is intended to announce the availability of a new
GENESIS-based book on biologically realistic neural modeling as well as a
new free version of the GENESIS simulator.

************************************************************************

                        The Book of GENESIS:
           Exploring Realistic Neural Models with the GEneral
                     NEural SImulation System.

   James M. Bower, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
           David Beeman, University of Colorado, Boulder

This book introduces the GENESIS neural simulation system, as well as the 
interdisciplinary field of computational neuroscience.  It is a step-by-step
tutorial for professionals, researchers and students working in the area of
computational neuroscience or neuroscience in general.  Each tutorial is
accompanied by a number of suggested exercises, "experiments", or projects
which may be assigned as homework, or used for self-study.  It can also be
used as an interactive guide to understanding neuronal and network structure
for those working in the area of neural networks and the cognitive sciences.
The Preface and Introduction give suggestions for incorporating this
material into neuroscience courses with existing textbooks.  The full
GENESIS simulator and all simulations used in the book are available at no
cost from the Caltech GENESIS ftp site.

Part I of the book teaches concepts in neuroscience and neural modeling by
means of interactive computer tutorials on subjects ranging from neuronal
membrane properties to cortical networks.  These chapters, written by
several contributors, allow the student to perform realistic simulations and
experiments on model neural systems and provide the necessary background for
understanding and using the tutorials.  The simulations are user-friendly
with on-line help and may be used without any prior knowledge of the GENESIS
simulator or computer programming.

Part II is intended to teach the use of the GENESIS script language for the
construction of one's own simulations.  This part will be useful for
self-study by researchers who wish to do neural modeling, as well as
students.  It follows approximately the same sequence of topics as Part II,
and uses parts of the tutorial simulations as examples of GENESIS
programming.  Several of these are based on recent research simulations
which have been published in the neuroscience literature, but which have not
been previously available for use outside the laboratories of the original
researchers.  Thus, the reader may modify these simulations and use them as
a starting point for the development of original simulations.


************************************************************************

                      GENESIS version 1.4.2

The current version of GENESIS is version 1.4.2 (December 1994), which has
been newly updated to contain the tutorials simulations used in "The Book of
GENESIS".  Around March 1995 we expect to release version 2.0, which will
have a number of new features that are described in Part II of the Book of
GENESIS.  If all goes according to schedule, this release will also run on
486 PC's under the Linux and FreeBSD versions of unix.

At present, GENESIS and its graphical front-end XODUS are written in C and
run on SUN (SUN 3, 4, and Sparc stations 1 and 2) and DEC (DECstation 2100,
3100, and
5000/200PX) graphics workstations under UNIX (Sun & DEC OS 4.0 and up), and
X-windows (version 11.3, 11.4 and 11.5).  It has also been used with Silicon
Graphics (Irix 4.0.1 and up) and the HP 700 series (HPUX). 


************************************************************************

                GENESIS use in education