Neurons and Synapses

Neurons are cells.
They have a cell body with axons that extend out.
They collect electrical potential; if they get enough, they spike and send potential to adjacent neurons.
Neurons are connected by synapses. A chemical signal goes across the synapse.
The signal can be excitatory or inhibitory.
There are lots of models of neurons.
Compartmental models (Hodgkin-Huxley) are really accurate.
We've worked with point models.
Our relatively novel model is the Fatiguing Leaky Integrate and Fire model.
There's a popular point model by Eugene Izhikevich. We're using that in the HBP.
There are different types of neurons that have different spiking behaviours; e.g. regular spiking vs bursty.
There's pretty good evidence on neurons because you can look at them in the brain, in petri dishes, and animal neurons are pretty much the same as human neurons.