Assessing the abstraction level for neuroprosthesis: Proposing a comparison of functional simulations in neuronal circuitry generated to resemble large-scale high-resolution reconstructions

All neuroprosthetic work depends on abstractions of aspects of biophysical functions that are normally carried out in neuronal circuitry. To decide intelligently which physiology can be safely abstracted we need to understand how significantly resulting function differs from that of the original substrate. Realistic neuronal networks generated with NETMORPH can provide a combination of large scale in terms of number of neurons and high resolution in terms of the biophysics that depend on detailed neuroanatomy, so that functional simulations will be able to investigate the ways in which design choices can lead to changes in function.