Synthetic Neurons Tutorial and the TREES toolbox

Supplemental material to the recent paper on creating synthetic neural processes reviewed in my blog post from two days ago is very useful in and of itself.

Note: The blog post is “Synthetic Brain Cells and Graph Theory” and the paper is “One Rule to Grow Them All: A General Theory of Neuronal Branching and Its Practical Application” published August 5, 2010 in PLoS Computational Biology.

The supplemental material, titled “the TREE toolbox: probing the basis of neuronal branching,” is really a beautifully produced 177 page tutorial on the mathematical basis of the use of graph theory in analyzing and generating neuronal branching and an introduction to their TREES toolbox for Matlab.

Note: TREES toolbox is open source and freely distributed at treestoolbox.org.

The materials are clearly written and easy to understand. Fun! The authors provide some incentives for third parties to add to the code. I hope we’ll see interesting and beautiful new synthetic neurons from around the world.

Other related blog posts:

Synthetic Brain Cells and Graph Theory