Joe Howard, Ph.D., Yale University
Branching Morphogenesis of Dendrites
The highly elaborated branched morphologies of dendrites are responsible for the enormous diversity of neuronal cell types in the brain. Dendrites grow by stochastic branching of dendrite tips, the elongation of the tips, and their retraction following collisions with other dendrites. Can these intrinsic processes generate the observed complexity? We are studying this question in flies, in which outstanding imaging can be combined with powerful genetic techniques. Using mean-field theories and simulations, we show that many of the properties of dendritic arborization cells can indeed be well accounted for by this stochastic growth mechanism. Our work provides a general theoretical framework for understanding how macroscopic branching patterns emerge from microscopic dynamics.