SNS-Toolbox: A Tool for Efficient Simulation of Synthetic Nervous Systems

Abstract

We introduce SNS-Toolbox, a Python software package for the design and simulation of networks of conductance-based neurons and synapses, also called Synthetic Nervous Systems (SNS). SNS-Toolbox implements non-spiking and spiking neurons in multiple software backends, and is capable of simulating networks with thousands of neurons in real-time. We benchmark the toolbox simulation speed across multiple network sizes, characterize upper limits on network size in various scenarios, and showcase the design of a two-layer convolutional network inspired by circuits within the Drosophila melanogaster optic lobe. SNS-Toolbox, as well as the code to generate all of the figures in this work, is located at https://github.com/wnourse05/SNS-Toolbox.