Title :
Grid Framework for Parallel Investigations of Spiking Neural Microcircuits
Author :
Muntean, Ioan Lucian ; Joldos, Marius
Author_Institution :
Comput. Sci. Dept., Tech. Univ. of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Abstract :
Simulation of spiking neural networks is computationally expensive and the employment of multicore processors can boost the performance of such simulations. Designing parallelization strategies that work well for different characteristics of the microcircuits entails expensive computations, leading to increased development times. To speed up the design of multicore software for computational neuroscience, we have developed a framework that exploits multicore systems available in grid computing environments. Due to the use of Grid SFEA plugins, common operations such as evaluation of parallelization strategies can be undertaken with very little effort. We evaluated the plugins for the development of a synchronous multicore spiking neural simulator. This uses the spike response model combined with the phenomenological model of spike time dependent synapse plasticity. The parallelization uses OpenMP, the microcircuits have small world topologies and count up to 104 neurons and 107 synapses with biological details. With this novel framework more complex investigations in computational neuroscience such as analysis of the dynamics of neural microcircuits could be tackled.
Keywords :
application program interfaces; bioelectric phenomena; biology computing; grid computing; multiprocessing systems; neurophysiology; parallel processing; GridSFEA plugins; OpenMP; computational neuroscience; grid computing; multicore processors; multicore software design; parallelization strategy design; phenomenological model; spike response model; spike time dependent synapse plasticity; spiking neural microcircuits; spiking neural network simulation; synapses; synchronous multicore spiking neural simulator; Biological system modeling; Brain modeling; Computational modeling; Multicore processing; Neural microtechnology; Neurons; grid framework; multicore simulation; small world network; spike response model; spiking neural microcircuits;
Conference_Titel :
Parallel and Distributed Computing (ISPDC), 2012 11th International Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Munich/Garching, Bavaria
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-2599-8
DOI :
10.1109/ISPDC.2012.37