The complexity of problems in computational neuroscience requires research from multiple groups across many disciplines to be combined. In order to combine research from multiple groups, there must be an infrastructure for exchanging model specifications; however, the current use of multiple formats for encoding model information has hampered model exchange. NeuroML is a model description language developed in XML (extensible Markup Language) that was created to facilitate data archiving, data and model exchange, database creation, and model publication in computational neuroscience. One of the goals of the NeuroML project is to develop standards for model specifications that will allow for greater simulator interoperability and model exchange.
An international workshop will be held in March of 2009 to bring together members of the computational neuroscience community for further development of the NeuroML specifications. The workshop participants will include modelers, software developers and experimentalists with the goal of refining the NeuroML standards for single cell modeling including the modeling of channels and the biophysical description of cells. Workshop outcomes will include a list of updates to the standards for the ChannelML and Biophysics specifications, an agreement from simulator developers for future support of cell and channel descriptions including optimization of simulators for large-scale simulations, and a publicly available summary of the meeting proceedings.
