Disentangling astroglial physiology with a realistic cell model in silico.

ABSTRACT: 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 experimenta

SUBMITTER: Savtchenko LP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6120909 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature