The regulation of dendritic branching is critical for sensory reception, cell-cell communication within the nervous system, learning, memory, and behavior. Defects in dendrite morphology are associated with several neurologic disorders; thus, an understanding of the molecular mechanisms that govern dendrite morphogenesis is important. Recent investigations of dendrite morphogenesis have highlig...

We present a mesoscopic description of the anomalous transport and reactions of particles in spiny dendrites. As a starting point we use two-state Markovian model with the transition probabilities depending on residence time variable. The main assumption is that the longer a particle survives inside spine, the smaller becomes the transition probability from spine to dendrite. We extend a linear...

Postsynaptic integration is a complex function of passive membrane properties and nonlinear activation of voltage-gated channels. Some cortical neurons express many voltage-gated channels, with each displaying heterogeneous dendritic conductance gradients. This complexity has hindered the construction of experimentally based mechanistic models of cortical neurons. Here we show that it is possib...

Activation of AMPA receptors assembled with the GluA1 subunit can promote dendrite growth in a manner that depends on its direct binding partner, SAP97. SAP97 is a modular scaffolding protein that has at least seven recognizable protein-protein interaction domains. Several complementary approaches were employed to show that the dendrite branching promoting action of full length SAP97 depends on...

Neurons have two types of processes: axons and dendrites. Axons have an active disassembly program activated by severing. It has not been tested whether dendrites have an analogous program. We sever Drosophila dendrites in vivo and find that they are cleared within 24 h. Morphologically, this clearance resembles developmental dendrite pruning and, to some extent, axon degeneration. Like axon de...

We study numerically how the neuronal dendrite tree structure can affect the diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) signal in brain tissue. For a large set of randomly generated dendrite trees, synthetic dMRI signals are computed and fitted to a cylinder model to estimate the effective longitudinal diffusivity D(L) in the direction of neurites. When the dendrite branches are short compared...

Hippocampal pyramidal cells and dentate granule cells develop morphologically distinct dendritic arbors, yet also share some common features. Both cell types form a long apical dendrite which extends from the apex of the cell soma, while short basal dendrites are developed only in pyramidal cells. Using quantitative morphometric analyses of mouse hippocampal cultures, we evaluated the differenc...

We have developed and described an analog electronic circuit that adapts the electrotonic properties of a silicon dendrite. The dendrite is modeled by the method of compartmental modeling, consisting of three dendritic compartments each containing a synaptic conductance, and one somatic compartment containing a spiking mechanism. Dendritic synaptic input is represented as an activity signal, wh...

We suggest a theoretical model allowing to find analytically the velocity of a magnetic flux dendrite penetration into thin superconducting films. The key assumptions for this model are based upon experimental observations. We treat a dendrite tip motion as a propagating flux jump instability. Two different regimes of dendrite propagation are found: A fast initial stage is followed by a slow st...

Alterations in dendrite branching and morphology are present in many neurodegenerative diseases. These variations disrupt postsynaptic transmission and affect neuronal communication. Thus, it is important to understand the molecular mechanisms that regulate dendritogenesis and how they go awry during disease states. Previously, our laboratory showed that cypin, a mammalian guanine deaminase, in...