ModelDB Help

It is possible to use ModelDB by just clicking on links - learning your way around intuitively (hopefully)! Please try this first.

ModelDB has two collections of data, public and private. The public data is viewable by anyone on the web. The private data is only viewable by the creator (and senselab administrators).

For full functionality, browse this database with Firefox 2, or Internet Explorer 5 or above.

More information is available at a help page for downloading and running models or read below information on how to submit models to modeldb.

MODEL SUBMISSION:

Models may be submitted in one of three ways:

directly via email to a ModelDB administrator. Attach a (compressed if possible) model file to the email. Describe the model in the body of the message. The ModelDB administrator will enter your submission and work for you to refine your model entry and integrate it with senselab's other databases.
a very easy entry form. Here's a video tutorial to show you how:
interactively through a private account in ModelDB.

Whichever way you choose, the model will remain private until you ask the ModelDB administrator to make it public. While it is private, you can prepare it for web publication. When you are satisfied that it is ready, request the ModelDB administrator to make it public.

If you plan to enter more than one model into ModelDB, you may want to sign up for an account. This will make it easy for you to keep track of all private models that you created under that account.

ModelDB ACCOUNTS

WHY IS A ModelDB ACCOUNT USEFUL?

The reason to have an account is that once you are logged in, ModelDB will show you a "Show my private models" link that will retrieve all of the private models that you created while logged in. Otherwise, if you do not have an account, you would have to remember the accession number and password associated with each of your private models.

In order to take advantage of the top mentioned convenient listing feature, you must be logged in when you create the model entry. Any model entries that you create while not logged in will not appear in your list of private models.

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR AN ACCOUNT:

signup form

USING AN ACCOUNT:

How to create a model entry in ModelDB (once you have an account):

Log into your account. Then click on "Create a private model under my account" Fill in the form fields and press create (note: no form fields are required). Then complete your entry by clicking on edit and uploading a model file. This two step process is necessary because field text data and binary file data can not be sent at the same time.

How to find your private model in ModelDB:

First, login. Click on the "Find models by ... model name" link near the top of the ModelDB homepage. This brings up a page with "Current selection displays 'all allowed' entries" at the top, where 'all allowed' is a pop-down list that you can click on to select 'my private'. Then click on the name of your private model.

HOW TO PREPARE A ZIP FILE FOR AUTOMATIC DOWNLOAD AND RUN

Web browsers can use NEURON as a "viewer" that automatically runs NEURON models downloaded from ModelDB. In principle, other simulation environments could also be enhanced so that models written for them could run automatically when downloaded.

For this to work, the model source code must be properly "packaged." The following procedure is for NEURON models.

Create a directory that contains all the necessary neuron model files and subdirectories.
In the same directory, put a file (called readme.txt, README, readme.html, or index.html) that contains specific information and instructions on how to use the model. This is the file that ModelDB will display in the Model Files window of the model description page (ShowModel.asp).
In order to run the program from the web, this directory must also contain a mosinit.hoc file. mosinit.hoc should contain a command such as load_file("init.hoc") where init.hoc starts the neuron modeling session.
Zip up the directory. On unix systems an appropriate command for creating a zip file called ca1neuron.zip from a directory ca1nrn would be
zip -r ca1neuron.zip ca1nrn
On MSWin systems with WinZip, create a directory called ca1nrn that contains all your Neuron files. Start Winzip. I find it easiest to run the wizard. After you enter the name of your new archieve (zip file) you can click on "add folders" and just select the folder with your model files. You can then close winzip. If you do not use the wizard then the model file directory you create must be the only directory at that level so that the wildcard add will work (there is no folder add).
The zip file is now ready to be uploaded to ModelDB.

REFERENCES

Hines ML, Morse T, Migliore M, Carnevale NT, Shepherd GM (2004) ModelDB: A Database to Support Computational Neuroscience. J Comput Neurosci 17:7-11

Migliore M, Morse TM, Davison, AP, Marenco L, Shepherd GM, Hines ML. (2003) ModelDB: Making models publicly accessible to support computational neuroscience. Neuroinformatics 1:135-139.

Davison AP, Morse TM, Migliore M, Marenco L, Shepherd GM, and Hines ML. (2002). ModelDB: A Resource for Neuronal and Network Modeling. In: Neuroscience Databases: A Practical Guide. Ed. Rolf Kotter. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dusseldorf, pp: 99-109. [amazon.com]

Email the ModelDB Administrator to ask questions, suggest improvements,or send comments.
Last Modified: June 24th, 2009