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Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions

The computational neuroscience field has heavily concentrated on the modeling of neuronal functions, largely ignoring other brain cells, including one type of glial cell, the astrocytes. Despite the short history of modeling astrocytic functions, we were delighted about the hundreds of models develo...

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Autores principales: Manninen, Tiina, Havela, Riikka, Linne, Marja-Leena
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5893839/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29670517
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2018.00014
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author Manninen, Tiina
Havela, Riikka
Linne, Marja-Leena
author_facet Manninen, Tiina
Havela, Riikka
Linne, Marja-Leena
author_sort Manninen, Tiina
collection PubMed
description The computational neuroscience field has heavily concentrated on the modeling of neuronal functions, largely ignoring other brain cells, including one type of glial cell, the astrocytes. Despite the short history of modeling astrocytic functions, we were delighted about the hundreds of models developed so far to study the role of astrocytes, most often in calcium dynamics, synchronization, information transfer, and plasticity in vitro, but also in vascular events, hyperexcitability, and homeostasis. Our goal here is to present the state-of-the-art in computational modeling of astrocytes in order to facilitate better understanding of the functions and dynamics of astrocytes in the brain. Due to the large number of models, we concentrated on a hundred models that include biophysical descriptions for calcium signaling and dynamics in astrocytes. We categorized the models into four groups: single astrocyte models, astrocyte network models, neuron-astrocyte synapse models, and neuron-astrocyte network models to ease their use in future modeling projects. We characterized the models based on which earlier models were used for building the models and which type of biological entities were described in the astrocyte models. Features of the models were compared and contrasted so that similarities and differences were more readily apparent. We discovered that most of the models were basically generated from a small set of previously published models with small variations. However, neither citations to all the previous models with similar core structure nor explanations of what was built on top of the previous models were provided, which made it possible, in some cases, to have the same models published several times without an explicit intention to make new predictions about the roles of astrocytes in brain functions. Furthermore, only a few of the models are available online which makes it difficult to reproduce the simulation results and further develop the models. Thus, we would like to emphasize that only via reproducible research are we able to build better computational models for astrocytes, which truly advance science. Our study is the first to characterize in detail the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms that have been modeled for astrocytes.
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spelling pubmed-58938392018-04-18 Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions Manninen, Tiina Havela, Riikka Linne, Marja-Leena Front Comput Neurosci Neuroscience The computational neuroscience field has heavily concentrated on the modeling of neuronal functions, largely ignoring other brain cells, including one type of glial cell, the astrocytes. Despite the short history of modeling astrocytic functions, we were delighted about the hundreds of models developed so far to study the role of astrocytes, most often in calcium dynamics, synchronization, information transfer, and plasticity in vitro, but also in vascular events, hyperexcitability, and homeostasis. Our goal here is to present the state-of-the-art in computational modeling of astrocytes in order to facilitate better understanding of the functions and dynamics of astrocytes in the brain. Due to the large number of models, we concentrated on a hundred models that include biophysical descriptions for calcium signaling and dynamics in astrocytes. We categorized the models into four groups: single astrocyte models, astrocyte network models, neuron-astrocyte synapse models, and neuron-astrocyte network models to ease their use in future modeling projects. We characterized the models based on which earlier models were used for building the models and which type of biological entities were described in the astrocyte models. Features of the models were compared and contrasted so that similarities and differences were more readily apparent. We discovered that most of the models were basically generated from a small set of previously published models with small variations. However, neither citations to all the previous models with similar core structure nor explanations of what was built on top of the previous models were provided, which made it possible, in some cases, to have the same models published several times without an explicit intention to make new predictions about the roles of astrocytes in brain functions. Furthermore, only a few of the models are available online which makes it difficult to reproduce the simulation results and further develop the models. Thus, we would like to emphasize that only via reproducible research are we able to build better computational models for astrocytes, which truly advance science. Our study is the first to characterize in detail the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms that have been modeled for astrocytes. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5893839/ /pubmed/29670517 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2018.00014 Text en Copyright © 2018 Manninen, Havela and Linne. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Manninen, Tiina
Havela, Riikka
Linne, Marja-Leena
Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions
title Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions
title_full Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions
title_fullStr Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions
title_full_unstemmed Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions
title_short Computational Models for Calcium-Mediated Astrocyte Functions
title_sort computational models for calcium-mediated astrocyte functions
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5893839/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29670517
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2018.00014
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