Construction and simulation of a path-valued model of dendrite development

Abstract

Neurons receive information through their dendrites. During development, when synaptic connections are forming, dendrites grow, retract, and branch. The resulting dendritic tree shapes the structure of the broader neural network. Crucially, retraction and branching make it necessary to track whole dendritic paths rather than only their endpoints. While this is handled implicitly in some existing simulations, here we construct an explicitly path-valued stochastic process for dendrite growth. Combining this with a branching process, using ideas from measure-valued branching particle systems, we show that the model produces the typical tree structures of real dendrites. To complement this analytical work, we also outline several methods for numerical simulation, including time discretisations at different temporal scales and an approximation using a dynamic graph. This provides both a more rigorous mathematical framework and more structured simulation methods for modelling dendrite development.