A computational analysis of biophysical and geometric constraints refutes existing hypotheses of cross-excitation in dorsal root ganglia.

The phenomenon of cross-excitation—interaction between neurons of a dorsal root ganglion (DRG) in intact organism, presents a great challenge since its discovery. It can not be attributed to classical neuron–neuron interactions, as the mentioned neurons are believed to be physiologically isolated by glial sheaths from one another. In this work we test existing hypotheses which explain the phenomenon from both biophysical and statistical perspectives. Our conclusion is that neither each proposed mechanism alone, nor interactions of them can adequately describe cross-excitation in normal conditions. We wish to draw greater attention towards the phenomenon, as it seems to be an important part of normal sensory information processing.