Abstract
The present study is focused on the development of optimal models of neuron morphology for Monte Carlo microdosimetry simulations of initial radiation-induced events of heavy charged particles in the specific types of cells of the hippocampus, which is the most radiation-sensitive structure of the central nervous system. The neuron geometry and particles track structures were simulated by the Geant4/Geant4-DNA Monte Carlo toolkits. The calculations were made for beams of protons and heavy ions with different energies and doses corresponding to real fluxes of galactic cosmic rays. A simple compartmental model and a complex model with realistic morphology extracted from experimental data were constructed and compared. We estimated the distribution of the energy deposition events and the production of reactive chemical species within the developed models of CA3/CA1 pyramidal neurons and DG granule cells of the rat hippocampus under exposure to different particles with the same dose. Similar distributions of the energy deposition events and concentration of some oxidative radical species were obtained in both the simplified and realistic neuron models.
Highlights
Recent experimental studies at particle accelerators have shown the occurrence of neurochemical alterations, oxidative and radical damage, modifications to dendritic morphology, electrophysiological alterations in different parts of the brain of the laboratory animals after exposure to energetic protons and heavy ion beams at doses matching the real fluxes in the energy spectrum of galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events [1,2,3]
This study presents the results of developments of simplified neuron models with properties equivalent to realistic neuron morphology for microdosimetric calculations, in order to investigate radiationinduced effects in the electrophysiology of hippocampal neurons
The geometric structure of a simple compartmental model and a complex model with realistic morphology extracted from experimental data were constructed in the Geant4/Geant4-DNA Monte Carlo transport code
Summary
Recent experimental studies at particle accelerators have shown the occurrence of neurochemical alterations, oxidative and radical damage, modifications to dendritic morphology, electrophysiological alterations in different parts of the brain of the laboratory animals after exposure to energetic protons and heavy ion beams at doses matching the real fluxes in the energy spectrum of galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events [1,2,3]. The analysis of these measurements suggests that one of the most radiation sensitive-brain structure is the hippocampus. The present work focuses at designing an optimal model of the hippocampal neurons irradiation with the aim at understanding the electrophysiological behaviour of the hippocampal neural network
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