Model : Ventral tegmental area (VTA) network and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors

The C++ code of this repository gave rise to the results presented in :

Graupner M, Maex R and Gutkin B 2013. Endogenous cholinergic inputs and local circuit mechanisms govern the phasic mesolimbic dopamine response to nicotine. PLoS Comput Biol 9(8): e1003183, doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003183.

Content

nicotine_program

The C++ code allows to simulate nicotine exposures to the VTA. One can loop over different applied nicotine (Nic loop) concentrations, different constant cholinergic input levels (ACh loop) and different constant glutamatergic input levels (Glu loop). The VTA and nAChR models are specified in the motif.cpp file.

The code can be complied using the g++ complier with the make command using the Makefile. Compliation will generate the executable program nicotine.

Execution of the program requires the par_nicotine.par file in the same directory which contains and specifies all model parameters.

Requires

• g++ compiler