Current understanding of neuronal growth is mostly qualitative, as the staggering number of physical and chemical guidance cues involved prohibit a fully quantitative description of axonal dynamics. We report on a general approach that describes axonal growth in vitro, on poly-D-lysine-coated glass substrates, as diffusion in an effective external potential, representing the collective contribution ... read moreof all causal influences on the growth cone. We use this approach to obtain effective growth rules that reveal an emergent regulatory mechanism for axonal pathfinding on these substrates.read less
D. J. Rizzo, J. D. White, E. Spedden, M. R. Wiens, D. L. Kaplan, T. J. Atherton and C. Staii, Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics 88 (4) (2013). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.88.042707.