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NJIT Mathematical Biology Seminar

Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 2:30pm
Cullimore Hall 611
New Jersey Institute of Technology

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The Effect of Neuronal Morphology on Passive Properties of Neurons

Krutanjali Shah & Yamin Noor

UBM Program - New Jersey Institute of Technology

The morphology of neurons (the level of complexity in anatomical structure) varies in every neuron. We wanted to determine if the variation in morphology produces essential changes in the passive properties of neurons. We examined the passive properties of Pyloric Dilator (PD) neurons in Stomatogastric Nervous System (STNS) of crab Cancer Borealis. We analyzed the change in passive properties by injecting the hyperpolarizing current into the soma of PD neurons. By doing so, we acquired the voltage response of PD neuron and took confocal images of it in order to get detailed morphology of the neuron. We transported the morphology of identified PD neuron in NEURON software. In order to verify our experiment, we injected the same amount of current in the model neuron and acquired the voltage traces. We compared the voltage traces of our experiment and the model. Also, we built a model neuron in NEURON and computed the voltage at the end of the branch of the model neuron. In this study, we came up with a conclusion that the morphology greatly affects the passive properties of neuron. If we do not take the fine details of the morphology into account, the response of the model differs a lot form the experimental response; however, this error can be reduced by adding additional surface area that would account for the ignored fine details of neuron.