SpikeMonitors record spikes from a designated NeuronGroup and dump them to a text file (a ras file). The format is standard two column which can be readily read with gnuplot. The first column codes the time and the second column carries the NeuronID.

The image showes the typical output of a ras file in gnuplot recorded from a balanced network with hidden Hopfield like patterns.

SpikeMonitor(SpikingGroup * source, string filename, NeuronID from, NeuronID to);

The default constructor can handle four arguments. source is the SpikingGroup to read from. filename specifies the full path and filename to write to. from and to can be used to select a limited range of neurons in the group to increase performance. If no values are given, all neurons in the group are used for recording. If only from is given it will be interpreted as the last value in the range starting from 0.