The recovery paper has come out

Finally, my "recovery paper" came out:

Recruitment of polysynaptic connections underlies functional recovery of a neural circuit after lesion.

Akira Sakurai, Arianna N. Tamvacakis, Paul S. Katz

DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0056-16.2016

This paper shows that, when a neural circuit failed by losing one of its synapses within, functional recovery can occur through reorganization of the remaining neural circuitry. We show that a molluscan neural circuit recruits additional neurons in response to a lesion. The extent of recruitment predicts the extent of behavioral recovery. 

Even in a well-defined (sort of) invertebrate neural circuit, there are indirect, polysynaptic pathways that provide compensatory function or flexibility to the circuit. Such individual variability appears to be hidden under normal conditions but becomes relevant when challenged by neural injury.

This paper is a sequel of two preceding papers:

Functional Recovery after Lesion of a Central Pattern Generator (2009)

Hidden synaptic differences in a neural circuit underlie differential behavioral susceptibility to a neural injury (2014)