Storyboard

The development of the nervous system involves sequential processes of neuronal proliferation and death (neurogenesis), cellular migration guided by molecular gradients, initial overproduction of synapses followed by activity-dependent pruning, progressive myelination of axons and temporal windows of especially high plasticity (critical periods). The net neuronal population results from the balance between a logistic proliferation limited by the capacity of the tissue and a rate of programmed cell death. Neuronal migration can be approximated with a reaction-diffusion equation biased by a chemical attractant gradient. Synaptic density follows a pattern of overproduction followed by pruning dependent on the correlation of pre- and postsynaptic activity, in a rule formally related to the plasticity of E07 but aimed at eliminating poorly correlated synapses. Myelination is modeled as a sigmoidal growth curve with age, and the window of critical plasticity as a bell-shaped temporal profile centered on a peak age.

>Model

ID:('ky', 1534)

Description

ID:(0, 1534)