Why small size matters: Tiny mitochondria stimulate brain cell connections Columbia neuroscientists have discovered why mitochondria, tiny power generators that keep our cells healthy, are often strangely shaped inside the brain. Mitochondria, which exist by the thousands in each of our body's 37 trillion cells, usually look like long interconnected tubes. But inside brain cells called neurons, they adopt two completely different shapes depending on their location within the cell: that same elongated, tubular shape and a substantially smaller, almost spherical shape, that more closely resembles golf balls. In today's study, researchers have identified the mechanism responsible for these differences in mitochondrial shape -- uncovering key insight into the relationship between mitochondrial shape and their function. This research, published online today in Nature Communications , suggests that these unusually small, squat mitochondria help neurons grow and make pr...
