Compartmental neuron models

Compartmental modelling of dendrites deals with multi-compartment modelling of the dendrites, to make the understanding of the electrical behavior of complex dendrites easier. Basically, compartmental modelling of dendrites is a very helpful tool to develop new biological neuron models. Dendrites are very important because they occupy the most membrane area in many of the neurons and give the neuron an ability to connect to thousands of other cells. Originally the dendrites were thought to have constant conductance and current but now it has been understood that they may have active Voltage-gated ion channels, which influences the firing properties of the neuron and also the response of neuron to synaptic inputs. Many mathematical models have been developed to understand the electric behavior of the dendrites. Dendrites tend to be very branchy and complex, so the compartmental approach to understand the electrical behavior of the dendrites makes it very useful.
Multiple compartments.
Increased computational accuracy in multi-compartmental cable models.
Each dendridic section is subdivided into segments, which are typically seen as uniform circular cylinders or tapered circular cylinders. In the traditional compartmental model, point process location is determined only to an accuracy of half segment length. This will make the model solution particularly sensitive to segment boundaries. The accuracy of the traditional approach for this reason is O(1/n) when a point current and synaptic input is present. Usually the trans-membrane current where the membrane potential is known is represented in the model at points, or nodes and is assumed to be at the center. The new approach partitions the effect of the input by distributing it to the boundaries of the segment. Hence any input is partitioned between the nodes at the proximal and distal boundaries of the segment. Therefore, this procedure makes sure that the solution obtained is not sensitive to small changes in location of these boundaries because it affects how the input is partitioned between the nodes. When these compartments are connected with continuous potentials and conservation of current at segment boundaries then a new compartmental model of a new mathematical form is obtained. This new approach also provides a model identical to the traditional model but an order more accurate. This model increases the accuracy and precision by an order of magnitude than that is achieved by point process input.
Cable theory.
Dendrites and axons are considered to be continuous (cable-like), rather than series of compartments.