NESTML language documentation

• NESTML language concepts
• Modeling neurons in NESTML
• Modeling synapses in NESTML

NESTML is a domain-specific language for the specification of hybrid dynamical systems: those that combine continuous-time dynamics, often expressed as ordinary differential equations (ODEs), with discrete-time dynamics, which model instantaneous events such as neuronal spikes. NESTML was originally developed as a modelling language for the individual neurons and synapses that constitute a neural network, but is a completely generic language for any hybrid dynamical system. The language is agnostic about the numerical methods used for simulating the model, such as which numerical (ODE) solver is used; this is instead determined when code is generated for the model (see the section Running NESTML).

NESTML has a concise syntax based on that of Python, and is indentation-based, which avoids clutter in the form of semicolons, curly braces or tags. NESTML model files are expected to have the filename extension .nestml. Each file may contain one or more models. This means that there is not necessarily a direct correspondence between model and file name; however, this is often done by convention.