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The NEURON simulation program now allows Python to be used, alone or in combination with NEURON's traditional Hoc interpreter. Adding Python to NEURON has the immediate benefit of making available a very extensive suite of analysis tools written for engineering and science. It also catalyzes NEURON software development by offering users a modern programming tool that is recognized for its flexibility and power to create and maintain complex programs. At the same time, nothing is lost because all existing models written in Hoc, including graphical user interface tools, continue to work without change and are also available within the Python context. An example of the benefits of Python availability is the use of the xml module in implementing NEURON's Import3D and CellBuild tools to read MorphML and NeuroML model specifications.

One of the more important recent additions to the NEURON simulation environment is a tool called ModelView, which simplifies the task of understanding exactly what biological attributes are represented in a computational model. Here, we illustrate how ModelView contributes to the understanding of models and discuss its utility as a neuroinformatics tool for analyzing models in online databases and as a means for facilitating interoperability among simulators in computational neuroscience.