Figure 1 -- Overview of compartmental modeling. In (a), a branching section of dendrite has been divided into seven cylindrical compartments. Each is connected to its neighbors via bidirectional links. In the CONICAL library, these objects would be implemented with the Cylinder and Link class, respectively. (b) shows an equivalent electric circuit for one compartment. Links to neighboring compartments (left) are resistors; the cell membrane includes a capacitance, a resistor and membrane potential, and variable resistors which correspond to active channels (left to right).