Using NEURON to model a system of endocrine cells
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 2:58 pm
Hello,
I am new to NEURON (and programming in general) and I am working with my lab partner to build a model of pancreatic islet cells using previous models not created in the NEURON framework. These previous models didn't have a spatial component and my lab partner and I want to utilize NEURON to add in this feature to the two existing models. Each cell type in the pancreatic islet secretes a hormone and that hormone affects the other cells. In the previous models, there was a single, well-mixed "sink" that held the concentrations of each of the hormones. In our model we want each cell to have it's own "sink" that is comprised of it's own internal hormone concentration, as well as the concentration of hormones secreted from other cells near it. If cell b secretes hormone i then we would like to have the concentration of i be greatest just outside the plasma membrane and decrease as you move radially away from the cell.
We have created mod file mechanisms for the secretion of each of the hormones as well as the ion channels in each of the cell types. This replicated the two models we are basing ours off of well. The next step we're trying to take is adding on the spatial relationships that I described above.
At first we tried to use NetCon because the weighting seemed like it would help us weight the effects of the hormones by distance, but the threshold argument was an issue because we needed a reading of the hormones coming from other cells at each time step, not just when a threshold was crossed. I was wondering if Reaction-Diffusion in NEURON could help us accomplish the individual "sinks" and spatial relationships I described above. If so, how would we set it up or where would we learn how to set it up? Any help is appreciated!
I am new to NEURON (and programming in general) and I am working with my lab partner to build a model of pancreatic islet cells using previous models not created in the NEURON framework. These previous models didn't have a spatial component and my lab partner and I want to utilize NEURON to add in this feature to the two existing models. Each cell type in the pancreatic islet secretes a hormone and that hormone affects the other cells. In the previous models, there was a single, well-mixed "sink" that held the concentrations of each of the hormones. In our model we want each cell to have it's own "sink" that is comprised of it's own internal hormone concentration, as well as the concentration of hormones secreted from other cells near it. If cell b secretes hormone i then we would like to have the concentration of i be greatest just outside the plasma membrane and decrease as you move radially away from the cell.
We have created mod file mechanisms for the secretion of each of the hormones as well as the ion channels in each of the cell types. This replicated the two models we are basing ours off of well. The next step we're trying to take is adding on the spatial relationships that I described above.
At first we tried to use NetCon because the weighting seemed like it would help us weight the effects of the hormones by distance, but the threshold argument was an issue because we needed a reading of the hormones coming from other cells at each time step, not just when a threshold was crossed. I was wondering if Reaction-Diffusion in NEURON could help us accomplish the individual "sinks" and spatial relationships I described above. If so, how would we set it up or where would we learn how to set it up? Any help is appreciated!