Preserving neural function under extreme scaling
- Important brain functions need to be conserved throughout organisms of extremely varying sizes. Here we study the scaling properties of an essential component of computation in the brain: the single neuron. We compare morphology and signal propagation of a uniquely identifiable interneuron, the HS cell, in the blowfly (Calliphora) with its exact counterpart in the fruit fly (Drosophila) which is about four times smaller in each dimension. Anatomical features of the HS cell scale isometrically and minimise wiring costs but, by themselves, do not scale to preserve the electrotonic behaviour. However, the membrane properties are set to conserve dendritic as well as axonal delays and attenuation as well as dendritic integration of visual information. In conclusion, the electrotonic structure of a neuron, the HS cell in this case, is surprisingly stable over a wide range of morphological scales.
| Author: | Hermann CuntzORCiDGND, Friedrich Forstner, Bettina Schnell, Georg Ammer, Shamprasad Varija Raghu, Alexander Borst |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-314509 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071540 |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| Parent Title (English): | PLoS One |
| Publisher: | PLoS |
| Place of publication: | Lawrence, Kan. |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2013/08/19 |
| Date of first Publication: | 2013/08/19 |
| Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
| Release Date: | 2013/08/20 |
| Volume: | 8 |
| Issue: | (8):e71540 |
| Page Number: | 10 |
| Note: | Copyright: © 2013 Cuntz 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. |
| HeBIS-PPN: | 352700866 |
| Institutes: | Medizin / Medizin |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit |
| Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
| Licence (German): |  Creative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0 |
