From single-cell modeling to large-scale network dynamics with NEST Simulator

Instructor: Sebastian Spreizer, PhD, University of Trier and Research Center Jülich

- Workshop: https://www.incf.org/incf-serc-ebrains-sweden-workshop-fair-neuroscience

- Tutorial abstract

- Tutorial materials: https://gitlab.ebrains.eu/spreizer/nest-tutorials-2025

The tutorial is composed of three modules in which the user learns to simulate with NEST step by step. 

Time schedule

EBRAINS Lab

How to get NEST tutorials on EBRAINS Lab?

1. Go to https://lab.jsc.ebrains.eu

2. Change drive folder to `/drive/My Libraries/`.

3. Next, clone a repo from the remote Git repository "https://gitlab.ebrains.eu/spreizer/nest-tutorials-2025" (Click on ).

   

    

4. After cloning, you find tutorials in `nest-tutorials-2025` folders.

5. When you start a notebook, select kernel: "EBRAINS-25.02" (or later).

   

    

6. Have fun with it!

Modules

1) NEST Desktop

The first part of the tutorial, we look at NEST Desktop.  As a goal we will create and analyze a balanced two-population network.

Documentation: https://nest-desktop.readthedocs.io

More information: https://wiki.ebrains.eu/bin/view/Collabs/nest-desktop

2) NEST Simulator

The tutorial will then turn to Jupyter (Python) notebooks where we will start by creating spiking neurons. Here, we learn advanced steps to write code with NEST Simulation syntax. The scripting codes allow us to customize sophisticated use cases with NEST simulations.

Documentation: https://nest-simulator.readthedocs.io

More examples: https://wiki.ebrains.eu/bin/view/Collabs/nest-simulator-examples/ 

3) NESTML

The last part is using NESTML to create custom neuron and synapse models for NEST Simulator. This will be done by formulating the learning model in the NESTML language syntax, and using the associated toolchain to generate code for NEST Simulator.

Documentation: https://nestml.readthedocs.io

More tutorials: https://wiki.ebrains.eu/bin/view/Collabs/nestml-tutorials