Fundamentals of Compartmental Kinetics

Abstract

The key to tracer kinetic analysis is the concept of compartment, a group of atoms or molecules which behave in such an identically predictable manner that the introduction of a few additional but labeled atoms or molecules do not change the behavior significantly. Compartments may be large or small but they are fundamental abstractions, regardless of their size. As such they can be said to defy the very concept they were created to represent, because they require that the members are at equilibrium with each other and hence allow no interactions among each other.