The lateral diffusion and trapping of neurotransmitter receptors within the postsynaptic membrane of a neuron
play a key role in determining synaptic strength and plasticity. Trapping is mediated by the reversible binding
of receptors to scaffolding proteins (slots) within a synapse. In this paper we introduce a method for analyzing
the transient dynamics of proximal axodendritic synapses in a diffusion-trapping model of receptor trafficking.
Given a population of spatially distributed synapses, each of which has a fixed number of slots, we calculate
the rate of relaxation to the steady-state distribution of bound slots (synaptic weights) in terms of a set of local
accumulation times. Assuming that the rates of exocytosis and endocytosis are sufficiently slow, we show that
the steady-state synaptic weights are independent of each other (purely local). On the other hand, the local
accumulation time of a given synapse depends on the number of slots and the spatial location of all the synapses,
indicating a form of transient heterosynaptic plasticity. This suggests that local accumulation time measurements
could provide useful information regarding the distribution of synaptic weights within a dendrite.