Passive Conduction - Cable Theory

Theoretical models describing propagation of synaptic potentials have evolved significantly over the past century. Synaptic potentials are the root of neural activity, electrical potential differences caused by fluxes of biological ions across the neural membrane. The first important breakthrough came through affirmation of the “leaky cable” theory proposed by Hermann. His theory described the way synaptic potentials propagate in lieu of excitatory membrane facilitation, i.e., passively. Passive conduction is an important behavior associated with the dendritic and terminal branches of the neuron. In the passive regime, the synaptic potential propagates with attenuation which prompted Hermann to ascribe a correlation with theory which describes “lossy”transmission lines [1].