TY  - JOUR
A1  - Knodel, Markus Michael
A1  - Geiger, Romina
A1  - Ge, Lihao
A1  - Bucher, Daniel
A1  - Grillo, Alfio
A1  - Wittum, Gabriel
A1  - Schuster, Christoph M.
A1  - Queisser, Sean Gillian
T1  - Synaptic bouton properties are tuned to best fit the prevailing firing pattern
T2  - Frontiers in computational neuroscience
N2  - The morphology of presynaptic specializations can vary greatly ranging from classical single-release-site boutons in the central nervous system to boutons of various sizes harboring multiple vesicle release sites. Multi-release-site boutons can be found in several neural contexts, for example at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) of body wall muscles of Drosophila larvae. These NMJs are built by two motor neurons forming two types of glutamatergic multi-release-site boutons with two typical diameters. However, it is unknown why these distinct nerve terminal configurations are used on the same postsynaptic muscle fiber. To systematically dissect the biophysical properties of these boutons we developed a full three-dimensional model of such boutons, their release sites and transmitter-harboring vesicles and analyzed the local vesicle dynamics of various configurations during stimulation. Here we show that the rate of transmission of a bouton is primarily limited by diffusion-based vesicle movements and that the probability of vesicle release and the size of a bouton affect bouton-performance in distinct temporal domains allowing for an optimal transmission of the neural signals at different time scales. A comparison of our in silico simulations with in vivo recordings of the natural motor pattern of both neurons revealed that the bouton properties resemble a well-tuned cooperation of the parameters release probability and bouton size, enabling a reliable transmission of the prevailing firing-pattern at diffusion-limited boutons. Our findings indicate that the prevailing firing-pattern of a neuron may determine the physiological and morphological parameters required for its synaptic terminals.
KW  - neuromuscular junction
KW  - boutons
KW  - modeling and simulation
KW  - structure-function relationships
KW  - morphology
KW  - firing pattern
KW  - adaption
Y1  - 2014
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/52590
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-525907
SN  - 1662-5188
N1  - Copyright © 2014 Knodel, Geiger, Ge, Bucher, Grillo, Wittum, Schuster and Queisser. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
VL  - 8
IS  - Art. 101
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -