Making time and space for calcium control of neuron activity

Abstract

Calcium directly controls or indirectly regulates numerous functions that are critical for neuronal network activity. Intracellular calcium concentration is tightly regulated by numerous molecular mechanisms because spatial domains and temporal dynamics (not just peak amplitude) are critical for calcium control of synaptic plasticity and ion channel activation, which in turn determine neuron spiking activity. The computational models investigating calcium control are valuable because experiments achieving high spatial and temporal resolution simultaneously are technically unfeasible. Simulations of calcium nanodomains reveal that specific calcium sources can couple to specific calcium targets, providing a mechanism to determine the direction of synaptic plasticity. Cooperativity of calcium domains opposes specificity, suggesting that the dendritic branch might be the preferred computational unit of the neuron.