Analysing the distribution of synaptic vesicles using a spatial point process model.

ABSTRACTStress can affect the brain functionality in many ways. As the synaptic vesicles have a major role in nervous signal transportation in synapses, their distribution in relationship to the active zone is very important in studying the neuron responses. We study the effect of stress on brain functionality by statistically modelling the distribution of the synaptic vesicles in two groups of rats: a control group subjected to sham stress and a stressed group subjected to a single acute foot-shock (FS)-stress episode. We hypothesize that the synaptic vesicles have different spatial distributions in the two groups. The spatial distributions are modelled using spatial point process models with an inhomogeneous conditional intensity and repulsive pair-wise interactions. Our results verify the hypothesis that the two groups have different spatial distributions.