%0 Conference Paper
%A van Albada, Sacha
%A Kunkel, Susanne
%A Morrison, Abigail
%A Diesmann, Markus
%T Integrating brain structure and dynamics on supercomputers
%V 8603
%C Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
%I Springer
%M FZJ-2014-04318
%@ 978-3-319-12083-6 (print)
%B Lecture Notes in Computer Science
%P 22-32
%D 2014
%Z DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-12084-3_3
%< Brain-inspired Computing
%X Large-scale simulations of neuronal networks provide a unique view onto brain dynamics, complementing experiments, small-scale simulations, and theory. They enable the investigation of integrative models to arrive at a multi-scale picture of brain dynamics relating macroscopic imaging measures to the microscopic dynamics. Recent years have seen rapid development of the necessary simulation technology. We give an overview of design features of the NEural Simulation Tool (NEST) that enable simulations of spiking point neurons to be scaled to hundreds of thousands of processors. The performance of supercomputing applications is traditionally assessed using scalability plots. We discuss reasons why such measures should be interpreted with care in the context of neural network simulations. The scalability of neural network simulations on available supercomputers is limited by memory constraints rather than computational speed. This calls for future generations of supercomputers that are more attuned to the requirements of memory-intensive neuroscientific applications.
%B 1st International Workshop on Brain-inspired Computing
%C 8 Jul 2013 - 11 Jul 2013, Cetraro (Italy)
Y2 8 Jul 2013 - 11 Jul 2013
M2 Cetraro, Italy
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)8 ; PUB:(DE-HGF)7
%9 Contribution to a conference proceedingsContribution to a book
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000345024600003
%R 10.1007/978-3-319-12084-3_3
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/155133