Metabolites Restriction and Connectivity Performance of Astrocytes Networks

MARPEGAN, L.; ROSATO SIRI, M.V.; MORALES, L. F.

Cordoba

Congreso; XXXIII Congress of the Argentine Society for Research in Neuroscience; 2018

ASN Neuro

Within brain tissue, astrocytes (AST) represent by far themost abundant cell lineage. It has become widely acceptedthat AST are anything but the glue of the Central NervousSystem and are associated, among others, with cognitivefunctions, information flow and processing, metabolic regulation and even the pathogenesis of certain neurodegenerative diseases. AST establish a very interesting cellulararrangement through specific and narrow junctions, GAPjunctions, allowing a coordinated and dynamic function asa network. The present work explores how metabolite availability modulates connectivity levels of AST network combining a physiological approach with a biophysical one.Network connectivity was assessed in AST primary culturesby measuring fluorescence recovery after bleaching (FRAPtechnique) either in a medium with high glucose or a nonglucose one. In addition, we have designed a numericalmodel that mimics various dynamic aspects of AST networks. The model is a bidimensional cellular automatonwhere the first and second neighbor interaction has beenset up in such a way that different hypotheses regarding theflow of information could be tested.