Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 9, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05896-w
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Wellcome Trust Principal Fellowship [101896, 212251/Z/18/Z]
- European Research Council Advanced Grant [323113-NETSIGNAL]
- European Commission FP7 ITN Extrabrain [606950 EXTRABRAIN]
- Russian Science Foundation [15-14-30000]
- German Research Foundation (DFG) [SFB1089 B03, SPP1757 HE6949/1, HE6949/3]
- European Commission ITN EU-Glia
- Human Frontiers Science Program
- NRW Ruckkehrerprogramm
- UCL Excellence Bridging Award
- Wellcome Trust [212251/Z/18/Z] Funding Source: Wellcome Trust
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Electrically non-excitable astroglia take up neurotransmitters, buffer extracellular K+ and generate Ca2+ signals that release molecular regulators of neural circuitry. The underlying machinery remains enigmatic, mainly because the sponge-like astrocyte morphology has been difficult to access experimentally or explore theoretically. Here, we systematically incorporate multi-scale, tri-dimensional astroglial architecture into a realistic multi-compartmental cell model, which we constrain by empirical tests and integrate into the NEURON computational biophysical environment. This approach is implemented as a flexible astrocyte-model builder ASTRO. As a proof-of-concept, we explore an in silico astrocyte to evaluate basic cell physiology features inaccessible experimentally. Our simulations suggest that currents generated by glutamate transporters or K+ channels have negligible distant effects on membrane voltage and that individual astrocytes can successfully handle extra-cellular K+ hotspots. We show how intracellular Ca2+ buffers affect Ca2+ waves and why the classical Ca2+ sparks-and-puffs mechanism is theoretically compatible with common readouts of astroglial Ca2+ imaging.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available