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Calcium Dynamics in Neuronal Microdomains: Modeling, Stochastic Simulations, and Data Analysis

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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

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Definition

Calcium is a key but a ubiquitous messenger in cell physiology. Yet direct electrophysiological or light imaging measurements are limited by the intrinsic small nano- to micrometer space where chemical reactions occur and also by the small number of molecules. Thus any fluorescence dye molecule added to measure the number of calcium ions can severely perturb the endogenous chemical reactions. Over the years, an alternative approach based on modeling, mathematical analysis, and numerical simulations has demonstrated that it can be used to obtain precise quantitative results about the order of magnitude, rate constants, the role of the cell geometry, and flux regulation across scales from channels to the cell level.

The aim of this ECN is to present physical models of calcium ions from the molecular description to the concentration level and to present the mathematical tools used to analyze the model equations. From such analysis, asymptotic formulas can be obtained, which are...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. École Normale Supérieure, Institute for Biology, IBENS, INSERM 1024 and CNRS Group of Computational Biology and Applied Mathematics, 46 rue d’Ulm, Paris, France, 75005

    C. Guerrier & D. Holcman

  2. University Paris 6, Laboratoire Jacques–Louis Lions, Paris, UMR 7598, 76100, France

    C. Guerrier & D. Holcman

  3. Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    E. Korkotian

Authors
  1. C. Guerrier
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  2. E. Korkotian
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  3. D. Holcman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to D. Holcman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Guerrier, C., Korkotian, E., Holcman, D. (2015). Calcium Dynamics in Neuronal Microdomains: Modeling, Stochastic Simulations, and Data Analysis. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6675-8_179

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