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Finite Element Simulations of Acetylcholine Diffusion in Neuromuscular Junctions

Kaihsu Tai^*, Stephen D. Bond^*,, Hugh R. MacMillan^*,, Nathan Andrew Baker, Michael Jay Holst and J. Andrew McCammon^*,

^* Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Department of Mathematics, Department of Pharmacology, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093; and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and the Center for Computational Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Kaihsu Tai, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0365. Fax: 858-534-7042; E-mail: ktai{at}mccammon.ucsd.edu.

A robust infrastructure for solving time-dependent diffusion using the finite element package FEtk has been developed to simulate synaptic transmission in a neuromuscular junction with realistic postsynaptic folds. Simplified rectilinear synapse models serve as benchmarks in initial numerical studies of how variations in geometry and kinetics relate to endplate currents associated with fast-twitch, slow-twitch, and dystrophic muscles. The flexibility and scalability of FEtk affords increasingly realistic and complex models that can be formed in concert with expanding experimental understanding from electron microscopy. Ultimately, such models may provide useful insight on the functional implications of controlled changes in processes, suggesting therapies for neuromuscular diseases.

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