dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaBranching Law for Axons
| Authors | Dmitri B. Chklovskii, Armen Stepanyants |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0302039 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0302039 |
Abstract
What determines the caliber of axonal branches? We pursue the hypothesis that the axonal caliber has evolved to minimize signal propagation delays, while keeping arbor volume to a minimum. We show that for a general cost function the optimal diameters of mother ($d_0$) and daughter ($d_1$, $d_2$) branches at a bifurcation obey a branching law: $d_{0}^{\nu+2}=d_{1}^{\nu+2} + d_{2}^{\nu+2}$. The derivation relies on the fact that the conduction speed scales with the axon diameter to the power $\nu$ ($\nu=1$ for myelinated axons and $\nu=0.5$ for non-myelinated axons). We test the branching law on the available experimental data and find a reasonable agreement.
{
"annotation_id": "c5342801-b9d0-4949-8ab2-4e6150c96ec0",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:00:42.282000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:00:42.282000Z",
"file_hash": "e858b44aefdd791f0dbb22ef7892174f19696e9dddf10231b91c1e0cbfed4798",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "What determines the caliber of axonal branches? We pursue the hypothesis that\nthe axonal caliber has evolved to minimize signal propagation delays, while\nkeeping arbor volume to a minimum. We show that for a general cost function the\noptimal diameters of mother ($d_0$) and daughter ($d_1$, $d_2$) branches at a\nbifurcation obey a branching law: $d_{0}^{\\nu+2}=d_{1}^{\\nu+2} +\nd_{2}^{\\nu+2}$. The derivation relies on the fact that the conduction speed\nscales with the axon diameter to the power $\\nu$ ($\\nu=1$ for myelinated axons\nand $\\nu=0.5$ for non-myelinated axons). We test the branching law on the\navailable experimental data and find a reasonable agreement.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0302039",
"authors": [
"Dmitri B. Chklovskii",
"Armen Stepanyants"
],
"categories": [
"physics.bio-ph",
"cond-mat",
"physics.gen-ph",
"q-bio.NC"
],
"title": "Branching Law for Axons",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0302039"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "6ad7cd9b-cfca-492e-a1fe-dbcf4bee1001",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}