Basic Usage Guide¶

This is a basic usage guide for the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of NEST Desktop.

Note

You can reload the application (Strg+R or F5) if NEST Desktop has somehow crashed.

Video tutorial¶

The video shows the first steps to construct a network and explore its activity.

Note

This video shows older NEST Desktop (v3.1). Some components might look differently but they can be interpreted for the new one.

First steps¶

Step 1: Construct network

If you want to construct a network, you will have to open the network editor. The network editor shows the network graph composed of nodes (shapes) and connections (lines).

Step 1a: Create nodes

In order to create a new node, you can click with the right mouse button in the network editor and a circular panel with three letters appears to select an element type. A node is divided into three element types: stimulator (S), recording (R) device and neuron (N). Click on one element type, a menu of models in corresponding element type appears. Then, selecting a model creates a node of the selected model.

Step 1b: Connect nodes

Forming a network of nodes is defined by making connections between and within nodes. In order to connect nodes, you can click on a connector of a node, then move the mouse towards anther node and finally click on a target node. It creates a connection between source and target nodes.

Hint

By pressing the hotkey Alt and clicking a node at the same time, you enable the connecting mode or continue connecting other nodes.

Step 1c: Select model and parameters

You are able to select the model of a node in the network controller. Then it shows a list of parameters which you might want to work on. Finally, you are able to change the values of visible parameters.

Step 2: Simulate networks

You can click on the SIMULATE button to start the simulation of your network. In the code editor you can inspect the generated script code.

Step 3: Explore activity

The network activity is composed of neuronal properties (neuron positions and ids) and recorded events from recording devices. Events can be subdivided in two groups: spike events and analog signals. Spike events contain times and ids of the senders emitting events to the recording devices which can be considered as collectors (spike recorder). Analog signals contain continuous quantities from the recording devices aka samplers (voltmeter or multimeter) which query their targets at given time intervals. Network activity can be explored in Activity chart graph ( or ) Activity animation graph (), or Activity statistics ().