This and the following chapter deal with concepts that are not NEURON-specific but instead pertain equally well to any tools used for neural modeling.

Why model?

In order to achieve the ultimate goal of understanding how nervous systems work, it will be necessary to know many different kinds of information:

• The anatomy of individual neurons and classes of cells, pathways, nuclei, and higher levels of organization.

• The pharmacology of ion channels, transmitters, modulators, and receptors.

• The biochemistry and molecular biology of enzymes, growth factors, and genes that participate in brain development and maintenance, perception and behavior, learning and forgetting, health and disease.

But while this knowledge will be necessary for an understanding of brain function, it isn't sufficient. This is because the moment-to-moment processing of information in the brain is carried out by the spread and interaction of electrical and chemical signals that are distributed in space and time. These signals are generated and regulated by mechanisms that are kinetically complex, highly nonlinear, and arranged in intricate anatomical structures.