Random Positions of Dendritic Spines in Human Cerebral Cortex
Open accessAbstract
Dendritic spines establish most excitatory synapses in the brain and are located in Purkinje cell's dendrites along helical paths, perhaps maximizing the probability to contact different axons. To test whether spine helixes also occur in neocortex, we reconstructed >500 dendritic segments from adult human cortex obtained from autopsies. With Fourier analysis and spatial statistics, we analyzed spine position along apical and basal dendrites of layer 3 pyramidal neurons from frontal, temporal, and cingulate cortex. Although we occasionally detected helical positioning, for the great majority of dendrites we could not reject the null hypothesis of spatial randomness in spine locations, either in apical or basal dendrites, in neurons of different cortical areas or among spines of different volumes and lengths. We conclude that in adult human neocortex spine positions are mostly random. We discuss the relevance of these results for spine formation and plasticity and their functional impact for cortical circuits.
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There is evidence for significant neuronal differences between rodents and humans, including distinct membrane and synaptic properties and dendritic complexity of human neurons that might contribute to human-specific signal processing.
“Indeed there is evidence for significant neuronal differences between rodents and human; for example, distinct membrane8,9 and synaptic10–14 properties and dendritic complexity15–17 of human neurons might contribute to human specific signal processing.”
From Transcriptomic and morphophysiological evidence for a specialized human cortical GABAergic cell type (2018) · cites this paper as [16]
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- Authors
- Morales, J., Benavides-Piccione, R., Dar, M., Fernaud, I., Rodriguez, A., Anton-Sanchez, L., Bielza, C., Larranaga, P., DeFelipe, J., & Yuste, R.
- Affiliations
- Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (ES)
- Columbia University (US)
- Instituto Cajal (ES)
- Venue
- Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2014-07-23
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 30
- Pages
- 10078-10084
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC4107399
- OpenAlex
- W2004667391
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 0.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Hispana (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Archivo Digital UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- UPM Digital Archive (Technical University of Madrid) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- European Commission (604102, 2007–2013, FP7 2007-2013, FP7/2007)
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
- Medical Research Council
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH100561, R21MH100646)
- National Eye Institute (R01EY011787)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R21NS081393)
- Army Research Office (W911NF-12-1-0594, W911NF)
- Army Research Laboratory (W911NF-12-1-0594, W911NF)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Developmental Neuroscience › Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity mechanisms
- Keywords
- dendritic spines, human neocortex, dendritic morphology, spatial randomness, excitatory synapses, cortical circuits, spine plasticity, frontal cortex, temporal cortex, cingulate cortex
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, 80 and over, Cerebral Cortex, Fourier Analysis, Humans, Male, Ultrasonography, Pyramidal Cells, Neocortex, Dendritic Spines
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