what is the role of resistive_load

[kirkw-1]

Hi just a quick clarification, what exactly is resistive_load (as opposed to axial_resistance)? I can't find any reference to a similar concept in NEURON.

I'm asking because when Jaxley auto-split my soma to accommodate a center connected axon it seemed to separate out this value across multiple segments, but the code base seems to define it as a component state value.

[michaeldeistler]

The resistive load is the integral over 1/radius^2/pi, in latex notation:

resistive_load = \int 1 / r^2 / \pi dl

In other words, a twice as long cable will have two times higher resistive_load, and a 2 times thinner cable will have 4x higher resistive_load.

The conductance that couples any two compartments is computed as:

g_axial = 1 / (resistive_load * r_a)

The concept does also exist in NEURON, but it is not user-facing.

Does this make sense?
Michael