TY  - JOUR
A1  - Anton-Sanchez, Laura
A1  - Effenberger, Felix
A1  - Bielza, Concha
A1  - Larrañaga, Pedro
A1  - Cuntz, Hermann
T1  - A regularity index for dendrites - local statistics of a neuron's input space
T2  - PLoS Computational Biology
N2  - Neurons collect their inputs from other neurons by sending out arborized dendritic structures. However, the relationship between the shape of dendrites and the precise organization of synaptic inputs in the neural tissue remains unclear. Inputs could be distributed in tight clusters, entirely randomly or else in a regular grid-like manner. Here, we analyze dendritic branching structures using a regularity index R, based on average nearest neighbor distances between branch and termination points, characterizing their spatial distribution. We find that the distributions of these points depend strongly on cell types, indicating possible fundamental differences in synaptic input organization. Moreover, R is independent of cell size and we find that it is only weakly correlated with other branching statistics, suggesting that it might reflect features of dendritic morphology that are not captured by commonly studied branching statistics. We then use morphological models based on optimal wiring principles to study the relation between input distributions and dendritic branching structures. Using our models, we find that branch point distributions correlate more closely with the input distributions while termination points in dendrites are generally spread out more randomly with a close to uniform distribution. We validate these model predictions with connectome data. Finally, we find that in spatial input distributions with increasing regularity, characteristic scaling relationships between branching features are altered significantly. In summary, we conclude that local statistics of input distributions and dendrite morphology depend on each other leading to potentially cell type specific branching features.
KW  - Neuronal dendrites
KW  - Synapses
KW  - Pyramidal cells
KW  - Dendritic structure
KW  - Neurons
KW  - Statistical distributions
KW  - Monte Carlo method
KW  - Connectomics
Y1  - 2018
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/47816
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-478168
SN  - 1553-7358
SN  - 1553-734X
N1  - Copyright: © 2018 Anton-Sanchez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 14
IS  - (11): e1006593
SP  - 1
EP  - 22
PB  - Public Library of Science
CY  - San Francisco, Calif.
ER  -