Effect of cytoskeletal element degradation on merging of concentration waves in slow axonal transport

The aim of this paper is to investigate, by means of a numerical simulation, the effect of the half-life of cytoskeletal elements (CEs) on superposition of several waves representing concentrations of running, pausing, and off-track anterograde and retrograde CE populations. The waves can be induced by simultaneous microinjections of radiolabeled CEs in different locations in the vicinity of a neuron body; alternatively, the waves can be induced by microinjecting CEs at the same location several times, with a time interval between the injections. Since the waves spread out as they propagate downstream, unless their amplitude decreases too fast, they eventually superimpose. As a result of superposition and merging of several waves, for the case with a large half-life of CEs, a single wave is formed. For the case with a small half-life the waves vanish before they have enough time to merge.