Academic literature on the topic 'Complex conductance networks'

In the previous thirteen chapters, we met and described, sometimes in excruciating detail, the constitutive elements making up the neuronal hardware: dendrites, synapses, voltagedependent conductances, axons, spines and calcium. We saw how, different from electronic circuits in which only very few levels of organization exist, the nervous systems has many tightly interlocking levels of organization that codepend on each other in crucial ways. It is now time to put some of these elements together into a functioning whole, a single nerve cell. With such a single nerve cell model in hand, we can ask functional questions, such as: at what time scale does it operate, what sort of operations can it carry out, and how good is it at encoding information. We begin this Herculean task by (1) completely neglecting the dendritic tree and (2) replacing the conductance-based description of the spiking process (e.g., the Hodgkin- Huxley equations) by one of two canonical descriptions. These two steps dramatically reduce the complexity of the problem of characterizing the electrical behavior of neurons. Instead of having to solve coupled, nonlinear partial differential equations, we are left with a single ordinary differential equation. Such simplifications allow us to formally treat networks of large numbers of interconnected neurons, as exemplified in the neural network literature, and to simulate their dynamics. Understanding any complex system always entails choosing a level of description that retains key properties of the system while removing those nonessential for the purpose at hand. The study of brains is no exception to this. Numerous simplified single-cell models have been proposed over the years, yet most of them can be reduced to just one of two forms. These can be distinguished by the form of their output: spike or pulse models generate discrete, all-or-none impulses.

The ability to fabricate networks of micro-channels that obey the biological properties of bifurcating structures found in nature suggests that it is possible to construct artificial vasculatures or bronchial structures. These devices could aid in the desirable objective of eliminating many forms of animal testing. In addition, the ability to precisely control hydraulic conductance could allow designers to create specific concentration gradients that would allow biologists to correlate the behavior of cells. In 1926, Murray found that there was an optimum branching ratio between the diameters

Bilayers are synthetically made cell membranes that are used to study cell membrane properties or make functional devices that use the properties of the cell membrane components. Lipids and proteins are two of the main components of a cell membrane. Lipids are amphiphilic molecules that can self assemble into organized structures in the presences of water and this self assembly property can be used to form bilayers. Because of the amphiphilic nature of the lipids, a bilayer is impermeable to ion flow. Proteins are the active structures of a cell membrane that opens pores through the membrane f