Mathematical Medicine and Biology Advance Access originally published online on June 7, 2007
Mathematical Medicine and Biology 2007 24(3):271-286; doi:10.1093/imammb/dqm001
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Modelling the geometric features and investigating electrical properties of dendrites in a fish thalamic neuron

Department of Pharamaceutical Sciences, University of Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Maryland, Baltimore, County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA
Email: wk{at}buffalo.edu
Received on November 23, 2005. Revised on January 16, 2007.
A certain pacific fish has a thalamic nerve cell with a unique dendritic geometry. Instead of the cell having a branching dendritic structure, the large cell of the corpus glomerulosum has, generally, a single dendritic stalk with a large bulbous tip. We formulate a cable-theory model that incorporates the geometry, and then, we solve the problem for a single, localized synaptic current source at the bulb. From the solution representation, we numerically examine the characteristics of the postsynaptic potential due to the presence of the bulbous tip.
Keywords: dendritic bulb; corpus glomerulosum; cable theory; eigenvalue problem; Legendre equation; Legendre functions; Green's function; postsynaptic potential; Galerkin approximation