Abstract
Background Following a contusion injury to the spinal cord (SCI), motoneurons below the level of injury undergo significant morphological and behavioral changes. Compared with uninjured controls, SCI motoneurons have a larger soma, fewer and thicker primary dendrites, and less dendritic branching [1]. Behaviorally, SCI motoneurons are more excitable and exhibit altered rhythmic firing and reflex properties [2]. While neuronal morphology and neuronal excitability are linked, to date it is not clear to what extent the morphological changes in motoneurons following SCI are responsible for the altered electrical behavior.
Highlights
Following a contusion injury to the spinal cord (SCI), motoneurons below the level of injury undergo significant morphological and behavioral changes
The SCI motoneuron input parameters were identical to the control parameters except: mean soma diameter was increased by 18%, mean number of primary dendrites was decreased by 22% and mean primary dendrite diameter was increased by 20% as seen experimentally following SCI in [1]
The differences in the input morphological parameters resulted in differences in several "emergent" morphological parameters of the virtual motoneuron groups which were seen experimentally, including: a decrease in maximum dendritic branch order and in the total number of dendritic bifurcations in the SCI motoneurons
Summary
Following a contusion injury to the spinal cord (SCI), motoneurons below the level of injury undergo significant morphological and behavioral changes. SCI motoneurons have a larger soma, fewer and thicker primary dendrites, and less dendritic branching [1]. SCI motoneurons are more excitable and exhibit altered rhythmic firing and reflex properties [2]. While neuronal morphology and neuronal excitability are linked, to date it is not clear to what extent the morphological changes in motoneurons following SCI are responsible for the altered electrical behavior
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