Changes to the axon hillock in frequently firing neurons are known to be important predictors of early disease states. Studying this phenomenon is critical to understanding the first insult implicated in multiple neuro-degenerative disorders. To study these changes we used cyclical stimulations using micro-electrodes to the axon hillock of mouse intracortical neurons. Numerical simulation resul...

The axon of the pyramidal neuron in the cerebral cortex arises either directly from the peri-karyon or as a branch from a basal dendrite. When it arises from the perikaryon, an axon hillock is present. The hillock is a region in which there is a transition between the cytologi-cal features of the perikaryon and those of the initial segment of the axon. Thus, in the hillock there is a diminution...

We use time-dependent HRTEM to reveal that stable dislocation pairs in graphene are formed from an initial complex multi-vacancy cluster that undergoes multiple bond rotations and adatom incorporation. In the process, it is found that the transformation from the formed complex multi-vacancy cluster can proceed without the increase of vacancy because many atoms and dimers are not only evaporated...

Syntaxin has an important role in regulating vesicle docking and fusion essential for neurotransmitter release. Here, we demonstrate that the distribution of syntaxin mRNA in cell bodies of sensory neurons (SNs) of Aplysia maintained in cell culture is affected by synapse formation, synapse stabilization, and long-term facilitation (LTF) produced by 5-HT. The distribution of the mRNA in turn re...

Although monocrystalline silicon reveals strong anisotropic properties on various crystal planes, the friction-induced nanofabrication can be successfully realized on Si(100), Si(110), and Si(111) surfaces. Under the same loading condition, the friction-induced hillock produced on Si(100) surface is the highest, while that produced on Si(111) surface is the lowest. The formation mechanism of hi...

Voltage-dependent sodium channels are distributed nonuniformly over the surface of nerve cells and are localized to morphologically distinct regions. Fluorescent neurotoxin probes specific for the voltage-dependent sodium channel stain the axon hillock 5-10 times more intensely than the cell body and show punctate fluorescence confined to the axon hillock which can be compared with the more dif...

Targeting mRNAs to different functional domains within neurons is crucial to memory storage. In Aplysia sensory neurons, syntaxin mRNA accumulates at the axon hillock during long-term facilitation of sensory-motor neuron synapses produced by serotonin (5-HT). We find that the 3' untranslated region of Aplysia syntaxin mRNA has two targeting elements, the cytosolic polyadenylation element (CPE) ...

Voltage-dependent sodium channels are distributed nonuniformly over the surface of nerve cells and are localized to morphologically distinct regions. Fluorescent neurotoxin probes specific for the voltagedependent sodium channel stain the axon hillock 5-10 times more intensely than the cell body and show punctate fluorescence confined to the axon hillock which can be compared with the more diff...

The site of impulse initiation is crucial for the integrative actions of mammalian central neurons, but this question is currently controversial. Some recent studies support classical evidence that the impulse always arises in the soma-axon hillock region, with back-propagation through excitable dendrites, whereas others indicate that the dendrites are sufficiently excitable to initiate impulse...

KDP single crystals were grown in aqueous solution by using "point seeds" with a defined crystallographic direction of 59° to the Z axis. When hillock slopes on the (100) face of KDP crystals were measured within the supersaturation (σ) range of 0 < σ ≤ 0.06, the slope of hillocks with hollow cores depended nonlinearly on supersaturation. Below σ = 0.02, the hillock slope depended on supersatur...