Fast contractions and depolarizations in mitochondria revealed with multiparametric imaging

When something bad happens to otherwise healthy neurons it’s easy to blame the usual suspects—the mitochondria. In some cases the nucleus might be the one at fault, as in a de novo mutation in a critical gene or in some other runaway error process in the instruction pipeline. Other times there could be leakage into the brain of toxins, bacteria, or even overzealous patriot cells of the host. But by and large, it’s the mitochondria who bear responsibility for nearly everything the brain does and so it is they who must accept it when it fails. To better understand how these organelles function, researchers have turned to special imaging methods that let them observe multiple aspects of their behavior all at once.

In one of the most revealing studies of its kind to date, researchers in Germany were able to observe the tiny contractions that mitochondria undergo during their complex shifts through different redox states and levels of depolarization. Publishing in a recent issue of Nature Medicine they relate these effects to pH and calcium concentration in the both the mitochondria and surrounding axon, and also to the larger spiking activity of the neuron.

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