Relating neuronal form to function

[ted@SPENCER.CTAN.YALE.EDU]

A digital preprint, issued somewhat belatedly--
at http://www.nnc.yale.edu/papers/NIPS94/nipsfin.html,
the html version of our final draft of this paper:

Carnevale, N.T., Tsai, K.Y., Claiborne, B.J., and Brown, T.H. The
electrotonic transformation: a tool for relating neuronal form to 
function. In: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems,
vol. 7, edited by Tesauro, G., Touretzky, D.S., and Leen,
T.K. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1995, p. 69-76.

Roughly 64K total, including figures.

ABSTRACT

The spatial distribution and time course of electrical signals in
neurons have important theoretical and practical consequences. Because
it is difficult to infer how neuronal form affects electrical
signaling, we have developed a quantitative yet intuitive approach to
the analysis of electrotonus.  This approach transforms the
architecture of the cell from anatomical to electrotonic space, using
the logarithm of voltage attenuation as the distance metric. We
describe the theory behind this approach and illustrate its use.

--Ted