Neural networks training in Matlab

Dear colleagues, I'm a new in Matlab, I can use the m-file to write codes, but I'm not yet familiar with all tools. My question is I want to build the cellular neural network cell by cell then train it to use it in a classification job,I should start with 3 by 3 network then increase it to be 256 by 265, each cell is a Chua circuit model, so how can I start that?can I do it only mathematically without using Simulink? what is the difference between the programming and the Simulink tool box? how can I simulate all the cells and connect it to each other?If you have good references please send it to me. Thank you in advance,