I am posting this notice to remind you that there is a FREE package
for converting cell morphology from neuron tracing systems to the
NEURON simulator. The program is called NTSCABLE and was developed
a few years ago by JC Wathey at the Salk Institute.
The program converts files from several tracing systems (Eutectic,
Nevin, NED and Douglas) into the NEURON format. I have personally
used it and it works very smoothly, the documentation available is
clear, and it is entirely free. The program is powerful in that it
allows to generate a variety of different cable approximations from
the morphology of the cell.
I have put a copy of NTSCABLE, as well as the documentation, in
ftp://salk.edu/pub/alain/ntscable_1.34.tar.Z and
ftp://salk.edu/pub/alain/ntscable_1.34.doc
Recent examples of single-cell models that used NTSCABLE to convert
Eutectic files to NEURON are also available (see Mainen et al.,
Neuron, in press, 1995; and Destexhe et al, J. Neuroscience, in
press, 1995; preprints are available at http://salk.edu/~alain/
and http://salk.edu/~zach/).
The company Eutectics Electronics also has a program to convert
their files to NEURON; but I never saw how this works, and it might
not be free !
Another common tracing system is "Neurolucida" by Microbrightfield.
Their file format is similar, but different, than others such as
Eutectic's. Unfortunately I don't know of any program available to
convert these files into NEURON (it does not seem too hard to do).
If such a code is available somewhere, it could be incorporated in
NTSCABLE.
If anybody knows how to convert Neurolucida files, please post a
note - thanks!
Alain
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