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edited by adavison
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62 62  PyNN comes with a selection of integrate-and-fire models. We're going to use the IF_curr_exp model, where "IF" is for integrate-and-fire, "curr" means that synaptic responses are changes in current, and "exp" means that the shape of the current is a decaying exponential function.
63 63  
64 +This is where we set the parameters of the model: the resting membrane potential is -65 millivolts, the spike threshold is -55 millivolts, the reset voltage after a spike is again -65 millivolts, the refractory period after a spike is one millisecond, the membrane time constant is 10 milliseconds, and the membrane capacitance is 1 nanofarad. We're also going to inject a constant bias current of 0.1 nanoamps into these neurons, so that we get some action potentials.
64 64  
66 +Let's create 100 of these neurons, then we're going to record the membrane voltage, and run a simulation for 100 milliseconds.
67 +
68 +PyNN has some built-in tools for making simple plots, so let's import those, and plot the membrane voltage of the zeroth neuron in our population (remember Python starts counting at zero).
69 +
70 +As you'd expect, the bias current causes the membrane voltage to increase until it reaches threshold~-~--it doesn't increase in a straight line because it's a //leaky// integrate-and-fire neuron~-~--then once it hits the threshold the voltage is reset, and then stays at the same level for a short time~-~--this is the refractory period~-~--before it starts to increase again.
71 +
72 +Now, all 100 neurons in our population are identical, so if we plotted the first neuron, the second neuron, ..., we'd get the same trace.
73 +
74 +Let's change that. In nature every neuron is a little bit different, so let's set the resting membrane potential and the spike threshold randomly from a Gaussian distribution, and let's plot membrane voltage from _all_ the  neurons.
75 +
76 +Now if we run our simulation again, we can see the effect of this heterogeneity in the neuron population.
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78 +
65 65  (% class="wikigeneratedid" id="HSummary28Inthistutorial2CyouhavelearnedtodoX202629" %)
66 66  (% class="small" %)**Summary (In this tutorial, you have learned to do X…)**
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