NEURON TUTORIAL FOR IMPLEMENTING SIMULATIONS OF THALAMIC RELAY NEURONS

                          Alain Destexhe

            Department of Physiology, Laval University,
                      Quebec G1K 7P4, Canada

Present address: CNRS, UNIC (Bat-33), Avenue de la Terrasse,
                 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

                      Destexhe@iaf.cnrs-gif.fr
                     http://cns.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr


This package is running with the NEURON simulation program written by Michael
Hines and available on internet at:
  http://www.neuro.duke.edu/neuron/home.html

The package contains mechanisms (.mod files) and programs (.oc files) needed
to simulate different models of thalamocortical (TC) relay neurons, relative
to the paper:

   Destexhe A, Neubig M, Ulrich D and Huguenard JR.  
   Dendritic low-threshold calcium currents in thalamic relay cells.  
   Journal of Neuroscience 18: 3574-3588, 1998.

An electronic version of this paper is available at http://cns.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr


  PROGRAMS
  ========

tc1_cc.o c  : current clamp in 1-compartment TC cell
tc3_cc.oc   : current clamp in 3-compartment TC cell
tc200_cc.oc : current clamp in 200-compartment TC cell (intact cell)
tc200_vc.oc : voltage clamp in 200-compartment TC cell (intact cell)
tcD_cc.oc   : current clamp in 8-compartment TC cell (dissociated cell)
tcD_vc.oc   : voltage clamp in 8-compartment TC cell (dissociated cell)


  MECHANISMS
  ==========

 hh2.mod		: fast sodium spikes (Na and K currents)
 ITGHK.mod		: T-type calcium current of TC cells
 cadecay.mod		: intracellular calcium dynamics
 VClamp.mod		: mechanism for single-electrode voltage-clamp


  HOW TO RUN
  ==========

To compile the demo, NEURON and INTERVIEWS must be installed and working on
the machine you are using.  Just type "nrnivmodl" to compile the mechanisms
given in the mod files.

Then, execute the main demo program by typing:

special rundemo.hoc -

Once the menu and graphics interface has appeared, click on "Init and Run"
button to start the simulation...

For more information about how to get NEURON and how to install it, please
refer to the following sites:
  http://www.neuro.duke.edu/neuron/home.html
  http://www.nnc.yale.edu/HTML/YALE/NNC/neuron/neuron.html


For further information, please contact:

Alain Destexhe

CNRS, UNIC (Bat-33), 
Avenue de la Terrasse,
91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, 
France

email: Destexhe@iaf.cnrs-gif.fr
http://cns.iaf.cnrs-gif.fr