Table 1. Characteristics of the three actin assemblies.

	Waves	Rings	Trails
Location	Undifferentiated neurites, axons, and dendritesa	Mainly axons, ∼10–20% dendritesb,c	Axonsd, ?dendrites unknown
Dynamics	Move at ∼2–3 µm/mina	None observede	Elongate at ∼1 µm/sd
Mode of actin polymerization	Treadmilling, nucleators (Arp2/3, formins) involvedf	Actin/spectrin scaffold, capping proteinsa	Nucleators (formins)d
Effect of actin-disrupting agents	Yesa	Yesb	Yesd
Effect of microtubule-disrupting agents	Yesa	Yese	Nod
Initiating triggers	?	?	?Actin nucleation on endosomesd
Putative function	Deliver actin to developing growth conesa,f,g,h	Support axonal plasma membrane, sodium channels in axon initiation segmentb	Deliver actin to axons and synapses (axonal transport)d

?, unknown.

^aRuthel and Banker (1998).

^bXu et al. (2013).

^cD’Este et al. (2015).

^dGanguly et al. (2015).

^eZhong et al. (2014).

^fKatsuno et al. (2015).

^gRuthel and Banker (1999).

^hFlynn et al. (2009).