An overview on neuron

For decades, neurons were thought to be the brain's basic computational units, summarizing incoming signals and eliciting action potentials only in response to suprathreshold stimuli. Although modeling studies predicted that single neurons would be a much more powerful computational entity capable of performing a wide range of nonlinear calculations, this possibility was not tested experimentally until active mechanisms in the dendrites of most neuron types were discovered. We review a number of modeling studies that have looked at information processing in single neurons, starting with those that characterize the arithmetic of different dendritic components, moving on to those that look at neuronal integration at the cell body, and finally, those that look at the axon's computational abilities. We present model predictions alongside supporting experimental data in order to emphasize the importance of modeling work in furthering our understanding of single-neuron arithmetic.