The finite volume discretization approximates spatial derivatives, reducing the original continuous formulation into the set of ODEs, with one ODE for each compartment, in equation~\eq{eq:ode}.
Here we employ an implicit euler temporal integration sheme, wherby the temporal derivative on the lhs is approximated using forward differences
Where $V^k$ is the value of $V$ in compartment $i$ at time step $k$.
Note that on the rhs the value of $V$ at the target time step $k+1$ is used, with the exception of calculating the ion channel and synaptic currents $i_m$.
The current $i_m$ is often a nonlinear function of voltage, so if it was formulated in terms of $V^{k+1}$ the system in~\eq{eq:ode_subs} would be nonlinear, requiring Newton iterations to resolve.
The equations can be rearranged to have all unknown voltage values on the lhs, and values that can be calculated directly on the rhs:
For an unrbanched uniform cable of constant radius $a$, with length $L$ and $n$ compartments, the linear system for internal compartments (i.e. not at the end points of the cable) is simplified by the following observations
\begin{align}
\Delta x_{ij}&= \Delta x = \frac{L}{n-1}, \nonumber\\
where we note that the ratio $\alpha_{ij}/\sigma_{i}=2\beta$ because the surface area of the control volumes at the boundary are half those on the interior.