Algorithmic reconstruction of complete axonal arborizations in rat hippocampal neurons

Three-dimensional axonal morphologies are not currently available to the neuroscience community in a format suitable for computational modeling. We have designed an algorithm to reconstruct full axonal arborizations based on sets of digitized segments extracted from raw anatomical preparations. We applied this algorithm to eight rat neurons covering the entire synaptic loop of the hippocampal formation (entorhinal cortex, dentate gyrus, CA3, CA1, and subiculum). Since no digital reconstructions of axons have been previously completed for these cell classes, we validated the algorithm by comparing the resulting dendritic arborizations (which were automatically reconstructed along the axons) of the CA1 cells with those available in several public archives. The eight axonal morphologies are quantitatively analyzed and freely distributed in SWC format (http://www.krasnow.gmu.edu/L-Neuron).