A new method and code for optimizing Neural models has been published: Friedrich P, Vella M, Gulyas AI, Freund TF, Kali S (2014) A flexible, interactive software tool for fitting the parameters of neuronal models. Front Neuroinform 8:63 The paper mentions in a footnote that the software is available at https://github.com/vellamike/optimizer (Click the "Download ZIP" link on the above page). and online documentation is available here: http://optimizer.readthedocs.org/