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Backend NEST
Fred Rothganger edited this page Aug 16, 2026
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This backend is preliminary. Currently, it is used only for importing SONATA models. The goal is to eventually support full import and export to the NEST simulator.
All the tags listed here appear under "backend.nest".
Tags that appear on parts:
- children
- {internal part name} -- A sub-part that gets added to fill out behavior. For example, an after-spike current in the GLIF model is a child part.
- {external parameter name}={value} -- A name that appears in the NEST parameter list that should be mapped onto this child part. The internal parameter name will be retrieved from the internal part itself. (See "param".) The assigned value here is optional. If present, it overrides any default specified in the child part. This allows the designer to avoid creating a derived part just to capture NEST constants for this context.
- {internal part name} -- A sub-part that gets added to fill out behavior. For example, an after-spike current in the GLIF model is a child part.
- part -- A comma-separated list of NEST part names that map to this internal part. The first one is the default for export. If blank, the name of this internal part is also the NEST name.
- ports
- {internal part name} -- The synapse part to use when connecting to this neuron.
- {external parameter name}={value} -- A name that appears in the NEST parameter list that should be mapped onto the synapse part. The internal parameter name will be retrieved from the internal synapse part itself. (See "param".) The assigned value here is optional. If present, it overrides any default specified in the synapse part. This allows the designer to avoid creating a derived part just to capture NEST constants for this context.
- {internal part name} -- The synapse part to use when connecting to this neuron.
Tags that appear on variables:
- default={value} -- Value to use if none is specified in the NEST configuration.
- param -- A comma-separated list of NEST parameter names which map to this internal parameter. The first one is the default used for export. If this tag is blank or absent, then the variable name is the same.
- unit={value} -- For values in NEST configuration that lack an explicit unit, assume they are scaled according to this unit.