Related papers: Accuracy in readout of glutamate concentrations by…
Trafficking of glutamate receptors into and out of synapses is critically involved in the plasticity of excitatory synaptic transmission. Endocytosis and exocytosis of receptors have initially been thought to account alone for this…
The physical limit with which a cell senses external ligand concentration corresponds to the perfect absorber, where all ligand particles are absorbed and overcounting of same ligand particles does not occur. Here we analyze how the lateral…
A pre-synaptic neuron releases diffusing neurotransmitters such as glutamate that activate post-synaptic receptors. The amplitude of the post-synaptic current, mostly mediated by glutamatergic (AMPARs) receptors, is a fundamental signal…
The investigation of the neuronal environment allows us to better understand the activity of a cerebral region as a whole. The recent experimental evidences of the presence of transporters for glutamate and GABA in both neuronal and…
NMDA receptors are ion channels activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate in the mammalian brain and are important in synaptic function and plasticity, but are also found in extrasynaptic locations and influence neuronal excitability.…
A synapse acts on neural transmission through a chemical process called synapses fusion between pre-synaptic and post-synaptic terminals. Presynaptic terminals release neurotransmitters either in response to action potential or…
Trafficking of AMPA receptors in and out of synapses is crucial for synaptic plasticity. Previous studies have focused on the role of endo/exocytosis processes or that of lateral diffusion of extra-synaptic receptors. We have now directly…
Membrane receptors for neuromodulators (NM) are highly regulated in their distribution and efficacy - a phenomenon which influences the individual cell's response to central signals of NM release. Even though NM receptor regulation is…
Glutamate-gated kainate receptors (KARs) are ubiquitous in the central nervous system of vertebrates, mediate synaptic transmission on post-synapse, and modulate transmitter release on pre-synapse. In the brain, the trafficking, gating…
N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) are glycoproteins in the brain central to learning and memory. The effects of glycosylation on the structure and dynamics of NMDARs are largely unknown. In this work, we use extensive molecular…
Molecular communication (MC) within the synaptic cleft is vital for neurotransmitter diffusion, a process critical to cognitive functions. In Alzheimer's Disease (AD), beta-amyloid oligomers (A$\beta$os) disrupt this communication, leading…
The energetics of cerebral activity critically relies on the functional and metabolic interactions between neurons and astrocytes. Important open questions include the relation between neuronal versus astrocytic energy demand, glucose…
Astrocytes affect neural transmission by a tight control via glutamate transporters on glutamate concentrations in direct vicinity to the synaptic cleft and by extracellular glutamate. Their relevance for information representation has been…
Neurons in a micro-circuit connected by chemical synapses can have their connectivity affected by the prior activity of the cells. The number of synapses available for releasing neurotransmitter can be decreased by repetitive activation…
Living cells sense noisy biochemical signals crucial for survival, yet models incorporating intracellular signaling are limited. This study examines how cells sense chemotactic concentrations through phosphorylation readouts in Ca2+…
Collective rhythmic dynamics from neurons is vital for cognitive functions such as memory formation but how neurons self-organize to produce such activity is not well understood. Attractor-based models have been successfully implemented as…
The extant versions of many basal ganglia models use a `gating' model of dopamine function which enhances input to D1 receptor units and attenuates input to D2 receptor units. There is evidence that this model is unsatisfactory because (a)…
Glutamatergic gliotransmission, that is the release of glutamate from perisynaptic astrocyte processes in an activity-dependent manner, has emerged as a potentially crucial signaling pathway for regulation of synaptic plasticity, yet its…
Synaptic connections in neuronal circuits are modulated by pre- and post-synaptic spiking activity. Heuristic models of this process of synaptic plasticity can provide excellent fits to results from in-vitro experiments in which pre- and…
Learning and memory are acquired through long-lasting changes in synapses. In the simplest models, such synaptic potentiation typically leads to runaway excitation, but in reality there must exist processes that robustly preserve overall…