The Hi- noon neural simulator and its applications

Abstract

This paper describes the Hi- noon (hierarchical network of object-oriented neurons) neural simulator, originally conceived as a general-purpose, computationally efficient, object-oriented software system for the simulation of small systems of biological neurons, as an aid to the study of links between neurophysiology and behaviour in lower animals. As such, the artificial neurons employed were spiking in nature; to effect an appropriate compromise between computational complexity and biological realism, modelling was at the transmembrane potential level of abstraction. Further, since real neural systems incorporate different types of neurons specialised to somewhat different functions, the software was written to accommodate a non-homogeneous population of neurons. The computational efficiency of Hi- noon makes it eminently suitable for situated system studies (biological robotics, animats) where real-time operation is a pre-requisite. The flexibility which was a central design goal of Hi- noon means that the system is also capable of modelling interconnections of non-spiking artificial neurons with continuous or piecewise linear activation functions. The efficacy of the simulator is illustrated with respect to some recent applications to situated systems studies. We also consider prospects for integrating Hi- noon with a conventional circuit simulator in the future.