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That leaves me to thank my excellent co-1st author David Edler von der Planitz, and our collaborators and co-supervisors @siawooshmr.bsky.social, @nikweiskopf.bsky.social, Evgeniya Kirilina, and Markus Morawski!

A collaborative project of @mpicbs.bsky.social and @unileipzig.bsky.social!

That concludes the skeetorial - check the full paper @plosbiology.org: plos.io/4mq5tOy

Furthermore, we supply other scientists with the necessary functions that describe our experimental data - important for anyone who might want to simulate brain-wide activity!

Based on this anatomical data, we estimate that corpus callosum fibers conduct signals ~25% faster than short white matter fibers, and show a higher portion of very fast fibers (>8m/s).

In contrast, the g-ratio distribution of both sets of fibers is almost identical!

Additionally, both groups of fibers seems to have a large amount of fibers near the g-ratio of 0.6. This seems to be the equilibrium for long fibers where energy expenditure by the organism, space constraints, velocity and efficiency of signal transduction meet.

We fitted a generalized extreme value function (GEV) to all of the distributions and found that both axon diameter and myelin thickness is downscaled in shorter fibers.

Using a fully automated deep learning analysis, we segmented each structure in the TEM data and analyzed the axonal diameter, myelin thickness, and g-ratio (ratio between axon radius & myelin thickness).

To investigate this issue, we sampled white matter tissue from body donors from a variety of superficial white matter (mostly short fibers) and corpus callosum areas (very long fibers), and prepared them for transmission electron microscopy.

Definitely going to, soon!

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