RatWorld - sensory input and motor control of rats governed by integrate-and-fire networks in 2-D virtual environments. Inputs from the environment to the network include the visual field, proximity to markers in the environment, ambient sound and proprioreception.
Networks are assemblages of interconnected modules each of which may be a integrate and fire network or a vector operation.
Several models of interactions are supported: rat moved by the user; rat following a predefined trajectory; rat moving randomly; rat motion governed by the network. Each environment may contain multiple rats (but as yet they are unaware of each other - June 00).
The RatWorld object itself simply contains lists to hold other objects: any component of the model must belong to one of these lists. Components reference each other by name.
The various component types are :
environments
recorded trajectories
control profiles
integrate and fire sub-networks
vectore operations
rats
rat networks
synapse properties
CcmbColor tables
binary controls
integarte and fire cells
compact channel-based cells
species - ions and molecules
compounds
solutions
sets of channels
applet layouts
A ratLabCtrl object controls interaction with the environment and runs the network. In the user controlled modes it matches virtual time in the input world with network time, blocking user input when necessary to allow the network calculations to catch up.
initial specifications requested and funded by Mike Hasselmo -- grant numbers NSF IBN 9996177, NIH MH 60013 and NIH MH 61492