Plasticity of dendritic spine formation: A state dependent stochastic process

Abstract

This study proposes that plasticity of dendritic spine formation may be modeled as distribution patterns imbedded in a spine length-dependent and density-dependent stochastic process. Modeling the jewel fish tectal interneuron revealed a critical 10-36 fim region where spine length plasticity was predicted to be most detectable. This hypothesis was tested by comparing neurons sampled from jewel fish reared for 4 years in a crowded environment (1 fish/6.64 /) with uncrowded controls (1 fish/25 /). The interaction between fish groups and the location of spine length differences was significant O(p in the crowded fish over the entire dendrite. These findings suggest two modes of neuronal plasticity: (1) plasticity of spine length during formation, and (2) plasticity in spine head width after the spine is formed.