We are happy to announce the first beta release of Brian 2.0! This is the first version of Brian 2.0 we recommend for general use. From now on, we will try to keep changes that break existing code to a minimum. If you are a user new to Brian, we’d recommend to start with the Brian 2 beta instead of using the stable release of Brian 1.

What’s new?

Several new features have been added:

Support for multicompartmental neurons
Cython as a new code generation target (bringing the performance benefits of compiled code to Python 3)
Several improvements to the C++ standalone mode, in particular OpenMP support for multithreading (not well tested yet, though, use with caution)
Improved system for repeating and continuing simulations and dealing with multiple simulation clocks and timesteps
Support for linked variables
…

For a full list of changes, see the release notes. In addition, a large number of bugs have been fixed, we therefore recommend all users of Brian 2 to upgrade. How to get Brian 2: follow the installation instructions in the documentation Further information about Brian2: brian2.readthedocs.org This is still a Beta release, please report bugs or suggestions to the github bug tracker (https://github.com/brian-team/brian2/issues) or to the brian-development mailing list (brian-development@googlegroups.com).