Neocortical View
Neocortical View, or NCV, is a software project developed at the University of Nevada, Reno. In conjunction with the Brain Lab's simulator software, NCS, it will allow researchers to view a 3D representation of a running simulation in realtime. It will also be a useful tool for creating figures and video sequences to be used in dissemination of research.
For neuroscientists, understanding the physiological processes that facilitate memory, learning, and cognition is paramount. By developing large computational models of the brain, scientists can simulate how neurons interact with each other to give rise to mental faculties. However, complex simulations of this nature can be difficult to analyze without some visual representation to accompany it. For the Brain Computation Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno, we aim to solve this problem by implementing a visualization program that will represent data gathered from their Neocortical Simulator (NCS) in real time.
While several software packages provide a mechanism for visually analyzing neocortical models, there are not many competent packages that can present this data in real time. In this aspect, this application has the potential to impact neural network research nationwide; providing research groups with the knowledge and tools to efficiently visualize their network in 3D. Although our application will not be directly portable to many simulation frameworks, the process implemented by our application could easily be adapted by most neural research groups to streamline their visualization.
We are developing this software for our senior project in CS 426, Senior Projects in Computer Science, Spring 2013. This is the second of the capstone courses taught in the CSE department here at UNR.