Stochasticity in Ca2+ increase in spines enables robust and sensitive information coding

A dendritic spine is a very small structure (∼0.1 µm3) of a neuron that processes input timing information. Why are spines so small? Here, we provide functional reasons; the size of spines is optimal for information coding. Spines code input timing information by the probability of Ca2+ increases, w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-06, Vol.9 (6), p.e99040-e99040
Main Authors: Koumura, Takuya, Urakubo, Hidetoshi, Ohashi, Kaoru, Fujii, Masashi, Kuroda, Shinya
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biochemistry
Bioinformatics
Biology and Life Sciences
Biophysics
Calcium
Calcium - metabolism
Cell size
Cerebellum
Coding
Computer simulation
Dendritic spines
Dendritic Spines - physiology
Dendritic structure
Electrical Synapses - physiology
Information processing
Male
Mice
Models, Neurological
Neural coding
Neurons
Probability theory
Purkinje Cells - physiology
Robustness
Science
Signal transduction
Simulation
Spine
Stochastic Processes
Stochasticity
Variation
Variations
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Summary:A dendritic spine is a very small structure (∼0.1 µm3) of a neuron that processes input timing information. Why are spines so small? Here, we provide functional reasons; the size of spines is optimal for information coding. Spines code input timing information by the probability of Ca2+ increases, which makes robust and sensitive information coding possible. We created a stochastic simulation model of input timing-dependent Ca2+ increases in a cerebellar Purkinje cell's spine. Spines used probability coding of Ca2+ increases rather than amplitude coding for input timing detection via stochastic facilitation by utilizing the small number of molecules in a spine volume, where information per volume appeared optimal. Probability coding of Ca2+ increases in a spine volume was more robust against input fluctuation and more sensitive to input numbers than amplitude coding of Ca2+ increases in a cell volume. Thus, stochasticity is a strategy by which neurons robustly and sensitively code information.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0099040