"Electrically non-excitable astroglia take up neurotransmitters, buffer extracellular K+ and generate Ca2+ signals that release molecular regulators of neural circuitry. The underlying machinery remains enigmatic, mainly because the sponge-like astrocyte morphology has been difficult to access experimentally or explore theoretically. Here, we systematically incorporate multi-scale, tri-dimensional astroglial architecture into a realistic multi-compartmental cell model, which we constrain by empirical tests and integrate into the NEURON computational biophysical environment. This approach is implemented as a flexible astrocyte-model builder ASTRO. As a proof-of-concept, we explore an in silico astrocyte to evaluate basic cell physiology features inaccessible experimentally. ..."
Model Type: Glia
Region(s) or Organism(s): Hippocampus
Cell Type(s): Astrocyte
Currents: I Calcium; I Potassium; Kir
Transmitters: Glutamate
Model Concept(s): Calcium waves; Calcium dynamics; Potassium buffering; Volume transmission; Membrane Properties
Simulation Environment: NEURON; MATLAB; C or C++ program
Implementer(s): Savtchenko, Leonid P [leonid.savtchenko at ucl.ac.uk]
References:
Savtchenko LP et al. (2018). Disentangling astroglial physiology with a realistic cell model in silico. Nature communications. 9 [PubMed]