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A computational study of factors in the evolution of myelin

Myelin is a multilayered, lipid-rich coating of axons that increases the conduction velocity of nerve impulses, contributes to compact nervous systems, and reduces metabolic costs of neural activity. Although usually thought of as a vertebrate adaptation, functionally identical myelin sheaths have evolved in several invertebrate lines. To gain insight into the possible factors in its evolution in the different lines, we undertook a modeling study of different configurations of myelin ensheathment and its physiological parameters. Based on the hypothesis that increased impulse conduction velocity provides a selective advantage that drives the evolution of myelin, we focused on parameters that speed nerve conduction. The myelin sheath was modeled with several levels of complexity using the NEURON simulator, ranging from approximating the effect of myelination by changing the specific capacitance (Cm) of a uniform cylindrical axon to a double cable model that represented the axon and myelin sheath separately using NEURON's extracellular mechanism. Simulations were performed on a sequence of plausible intermediate stages of myelin evolution from the apposition of membrane from adjacent glial cells to a single layer of myelin surrounding the axon to multiple myelin wraps with well-organized nodes. At each stage the effects of the model parameters on conduction velocity were assessed. We found that a relatively small amount of myelination, even partial coverage by a single layer of glial membrane, produced a substantial increase in conduction velocity. For example, the addition of one myelin wrap (2 membranes) to a small (2 micron) diameter axon resulted in a 70% increase in conduction velocity, suggesting that a substantial advantage of myelin could be available to the earliest stages in myelin evolution. For the double cable model, conduction velocity increased more rapidly with increasing myelin wraps for larger diameter axons. This suggests that in the transition to a myelinated nervous system, it is large diameter axons that become myelinated first.

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This study was supported by NSF OCE 04-51376 and by grants to the Békésy Laboratory of Neurobiology from the Cades Foundation.

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Correspondence to Ann Castelfranco.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Castelfranco, A., Hartline, D. A computational study of factors in the evolution of myelin. BMC Neurosci 8 (Suppl 2), P115 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-8-S2-P115

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-8-S2-P115

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