An efficient method for computing synaptic conductances based on a kinetic model of
receptor binding

Alain Destexhe, Zachary F. Mainen and Terrence J. Sejnowski

Neural Computation 6, 14-18 (1994)

Reasonable biophysical assumptions about synaptic transmission allow the equations for a simple kinetic synapse model to be solved analytically. This yields a mechanism that preserves the advantages of kinetic models while being as fast to compute as a single alpha -function. Moreover, this mechanism accounts implicitly for saturation and summation of multiple synaptic events, obviating the need for event queuing. The authors have presented a method by which synaptic conductances can be computed with low computational expense. The kinetic approach provides a natural means to describe the behavior of synapses in a way that handles the interaction of successive presynaptic events. Under the same assumption that transmitter concentration occurs as a pulse, more complex kinetic schemes can be treated. The 'kinetic synapse' can thus be generalized to give various conductance time courses with multiexponential rise and decay phases, without sacrificing the efficiency of the first-order model.

Full text (postscript)

Source code for the Neuron v3.x simulation package
(Demo reproduces the figures of this and the J. Computational Neurosci. paper.)