The Interplay between Branching and Pruning on Neuronal Target Search during Developmental Growth: Functional Role and Implications

Remus Oşan, Emily Su and Troy Shinbrot

PLOS ONE, 2011, vol. 6, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: Regenerative strategies that facilitate the regrowth and reconnection of neurons are some of the most promising methods in spinal cord injury research. An essential part of these strategies is an increased understanding of the mechanisms by which growing neurites seek out and synapse with viable targets. In this paper, we use computational and theoretical tools to examine the targeting efficiency of growing neurites subject to limited resources, such as maximum total neural tree length. We find that in order to efficiently reach a particular target, growing neurites must achieve balance between pruning and branching: rapidly growing neurites that do not prune will exhaust their resources, and frequently pruning neurites will fail to explore space effectively. We also find that the optimal branching/pruning balance must shift as the target distance changes: different strategies are called for to reach nearby vs. distant targets. This suggests the existence of a currently unidentified higher-level regulatory factor to control arborization dynamics. We propose that these findings may be useful in future therapies seeking to improve targeting rates through manipulation of arborization behaviors.

Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0025135 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 25135&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0025135

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0025135

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().