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This paper describes a detailed compartmental model of the cerebellar Purkinje cell. Although this cell has been the subject of numerous previous modeling efforts (see below), the current model includes important features of this neuron that were not present in previous ones. For example, several authors have explored the passive properties of the Purkinje cell [2, 8, 7, 9]. However, these models did not include voltage-dependent conductances in the dendrites, which are known to be extensive in Purkinje cells [5] and which play an important role in the response to both current injections and synaptic inputs (most spectacular for the climbing fiber synapse). Two models that do include ionic conductances in the dendrites have been reported in the literature. The first one [6] was quite innovative in that it was one of the first models with active membrane in the dendrites ever published. Unfortunately, much less was known at that time about the dendritic conductances within this cell, so that the model used fast Na+ channels and a delayed rectifier in the dendrites instead of the Ca2+ and Ca2+-activated K+ channels that are now known to be present [4, 3]. The other active membrane model [1] used a more appropriate set of ionic channels in the soma and dendrite and some data were presented indicating that it replicated responses to current injections. However, neither the model nor its responses were described in any detail. Instead, the main emphasis of the report was on describing a new set of equations to simulate ionic channels in single-cell models.
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