ArticlePLoS computational biology2010
Neocortical axon arbors trade-off material and conduction delay conservation.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cortical and white matter myelination proceed in concert during early infancy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A Spatiotemporal Perspective on Dynamical Computation in Neural Information Processing Systems.ArXiv · 2026Article
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- Generating brain-wide connectome using synthetic axonal morphologies.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Cortical and white matter T1w/T2w development proceed in concert during early infancy.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Computational Generation of Long-range Axonal Morphologies.Neuroinformatics · 2025Article
- Unsupervised classification of brain-wide axons reveals the presubiculum neuronal projection blueprint.Nature communications · 2024Article
- A biologically inspired repair mechanism for neuronal reconstructions with a focus on human dendrites.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Quantitative spatial analysis reveals that the local axons of lamina I projection neurons and interneurons exhibit distributions that predict distinct roles in spinal sensory processing.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2022Article
- Pareto optimality, economy-effectiveness trade-offs and ion channel degeneracy: improving population modelling for single neurons.Open biology · 2022Review
- Modular Organization of Signal Transmission in Primate Somatosensory Cortex.Frontiers in neuroanatomy · 2022Article
- Digital Reconstruction of the Neuro-Glia-Vascular Architecture.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Article
- Super-Selective Reconstruction of Causal and Direct Connectivity With Application toFrontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- A Statistical Growth Property of Plant Root Architectures.Plant phenomics (Washington, D.C.) · 2020Article
- ROOTS: An Algorithm to Generate Biologically Realistic Cortical Axons and an Application to Electroceutical Modeling.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2020Article
- Article
- Travel in city road networks follows similar transport trade-off principles to neural and plant arbors.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2019Article
- Neural arbors are Pareto optimal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- An Optimized Structure-Function Design Principle Underlies Efficient Signaling Dynamics in Neurons.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- A biological blueprint for the axons of superficial layer pyramidal cells in cat primary visual cortex.Brain structure & function · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The brain contains a complex network of axons rapidly communicating information between billions of synaptically connected neurons. The morphology of individual axons, therefore, defines the course of information flow within the brain. More than a century ago, Ramón y Cajal proposed that conservation laws to save material (wire) length and limit conduction delay regulate the design of individual axon arbors in cerebral cortex. Yet the spatial and temporal communication costs of single neocortical axons remain undefined. Here, using reconstructions of in vivo labelled excitatory spiny cell and inhibitory basket cell intracortical axons combined with a variety of graph optimization algorithms, we empirically investigated Cajal's conservation laws in cerebral cortex for whole three-dimensional (3D) axon arbors, to our knowledge the first study of its kind. We found intracortical axons were significantly longer than optimal. The temporal cost of cortical axons was also suboptimal though far superior to wire-minimized arbors. We discovered that cortical axon branching appears to promote a low temporal dispersion of axonal latencies and a tight relationship between cortical distance and axonal latency. In addition, inhibitory basket cell axonal latencies may occur within a much narrower temporal window than excitatory spiny cell axons, which may help boost signal detection. Thus, to optimize neuronal network communication we find that a modest excess of axonal wire is traded-off to enhance arbor temporal economy and precision. Our results offer insight into the principles of brain organization and communication in and development of grey matter, where temporal precision is a crucial prerequisite for coincidence detection, synchronization and rapid network oscillations.
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