Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Journal articles
  4. The Green's function formalism as a bridge between single- and multi-compartmental modeling
 
research article

The Green's function formalism as a bridge between single- and multi-compartmental modeling

Wybo, Willem A. M.
•
Stiefel, Klaus M.
•
Torben-Nielsen, Benjamin
2013
Biological Cybernetics

Neurons are spatially extended structures that receive and process inputs on their dendrites. It is generally accepted that neuronal computations arise from the active integration of synaptic inputs along a dendrite between the input location and the location of spike generation in the axon initial segment. However, many application such as simulations of brain networks use point-neurons-neurons without a morphological component-as computational units to keep the conceptual complexity and computational costs low. Inevitably, these applications thus omit a fundamental property of neuronal computation. In this work, we present an approach to model an artificial synapse that mimics dendritic processing without the need to explicitly simulate dendritic dynamics. The model synapse employs an analytic solution for the cable equation to compute the neuron's membrane potential following dendritic inputs. Green's function formalism is used to derive the closed version of the cable equation. We show that by using this synapse model, point-neurons can achieve results that were previously limited to the realms of multi-compartmental models. Moreover, a computational advantage is achieved when only a small number of simulated synapses impinge on a morphologically elaborate neuron. Opportunities and limitations are discussed.

  • Files
  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
research article
DOI
10.1007/s00422-013-0568-0
Web of Science ID

WOS:000328202200005

Author(s)
Wybo, Willem A. M.
Stiefel, Klaus M.
Torben-Nielsen, Benjamin
Date Issued

2013

Publisher

Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Published in
Biological Cybernetics
Volume

107

Issue

6

Start page

685

End page

694

Subjects

Morphological simplification

•

Cable theory

•

Interacting synapses

•

Green's function formalism

•

Transfer functions

Note

National Licences

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
SV  
BBP-CORE  
Available on Infoscience
January 9, 2014
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/99209
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés