Analog recording with multimeter

As of r89xx, NEST replaces a range of analog recording devices, such as voltmeter, conductancemeter and aeif_w_meter with a universal multimeter, which can record all analog quantities a model neuron makes available for recording. Multimeter works essentially as the old-style voltmeter, but with a few changes:

  • The /recordables list of a neuron model will tell you which quantities can be recorded:

    In [3]: nest.GetDefaults('iaf_cond_alpha')['recordables']
    Out[3]: ['V_m', 'g_ex', 'g_in', 't_ref_remaining']
  • You have to configure multimeter to record from a set of quantities:

    nest.Create('multimeter', params={'record_from': ['V_m', 'g_ex']})
  • By default, the recording interval is 1ms, but you can change this

    nest.Create('multimeter', params={'record_from': ['V_m', 'g_ex'], 'interval' :0.1})
  • The set of variables to record and the recording interval must be set before the multimeter is connected to any node, and cannot be changed afterwards.

  • After one has simulated a little, the events entry of the multimeter status dictionary will contain one numpy array of data for each recordable.

  • Any node can only be recorded from by one multimeter.

Adapting scripts using voltmeter

Many NEST users have scripts that use voltmeter to record membrane potential. To ease the transition to the new-style analog recording, NEST still provides a device called voltmeter. It is simply a multimeter pre-configured to record the membrane potential V_m. It can be used exactly as the old voltmeter. The only change you need to make to your scripts is that you collect data from events/V_m instead of from events/potentials, e.g.

In [24]: nest.GetStatus(m, 'events')[0]['V_m']

Out[24]:
array([-70.        , -70.        , -70.        , -70.        ,
       -70.        , -70.        , -70.        , -70.        ,

An example

As an example, here is the multimeter.py example from the PyNEST examples set:

import nest
import numpy as np
import pylab as pl

# display recordables for illustration
print 'iaf_cond_alpha recordables: ', nest.GetDefaults('iaf_cond_alpha')['recordables']

# create neuron and multimeter
n = nest.Create('iaf_cond_alpha',  params = {'tau_syn_ex': 1.0, 'V_reset': -70.0})

m = nest.Create('multimeter', params = {'withtime': True, 'interval': 0.1, 'record_from': ['V_m', 'g_ex', 'g_in']})

# Create spike generators and connect
gex = nest.Create('spike_generator', params = {'spike_times': np.array([10.0, 20.0, 50.0])})
gin = nest.Create('spike_generator',  params = {'spike_times': np.array([15.0, 25.0, 55.0])})

nest.Connect(gex, n, params={'weight':  40.0}) # excitatory
nest.Connect(gin, n, params={'weight': -20.0}) # inhibitory
nest.Connect(m, n)

# simulate
nest.Simulate(100)

# obtain and display data
events = nest.GetStatus(m)[0]['events']
t = events['times'];

pl.subplot(211)
pl.plot(t, events['V_m'])
pl.axis([0, 100, -75, -53])
pl.ylabel('Membrane potential [mV]')

pl.subplot(212)
pl.plot(t, events['g_ex'], t, events['g_in'])
pl.axis([0, 100, 0, 45])
pl.xlabel('Time [ms]')
pl.ylabel('Synaptic conductance [nS]')
pl.legend(('g_exc', 'g_inh'))

Here is the result:

MultimeterExample

MultimeterExample