title: Saltatory waves in the spike-diffuse-spike model of active dendritic spines.
abstract: In this Letter we present the explicit construction of a saltatory traveling pulse of nonconstant profile in an idealized model of dendritic tissue. Excitable dendritic spine clusters, modeled with integrate-and-fire (IF) units, are connected to a passive dendritic cable at a discrete set of points. The saltatory nature of the wave is directly attributed to the breaking of translation symmetry in the cable. The conditions for propagation failure are presented as a function of cluster separation and IF threshold.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Coombes
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Bressloff
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020013:Calcium Signaling / Q000502:physiology; D003712:Dendrites / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D051381:Rats; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology