Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Neuroscience

Dancing dendrites

Nature volume 394, pages 129–130 (1998)Cite this article

Fischer et al. first transfected cultured hippocampal neurons with actin that was tagged with green fluorescent protein. Then, using videomicroscopy, they monitored any changes in the position of the actin on a second-to-second timescale. Each spine appeared like a tiny writhing sack, full of actin filaments struggling unsuccessfully to escape. The movement was clearly mediated by actin polymerization, as it was reversibly inhibited by cytochalasin, an agent that blocks this process. What does all this movement mean with regard to the function of dendritic spines in the brain? Is it an example of what happens functionally, or is it an artefact of cell culture? Could it be involved in synaptic plasticity, or development, or both? Whatever the answers, this demonstration of dynamic activity shows that substantial movement is undoubtedly something that the spines can do.

There is a well-studied precedent for the involvement of actin-mediated structural changes in synaptic plasticity. Actin forms filamentous structures that, among other functions, mediate light adaptation by the formation of huge outgrowths (spinules) from the dendritic spine in synapses between horizontal cells and cones in fish retina (> 100 nm in 30 min; 23). It thus seems likely that the rapid movement in cultured hippocampal neurons, seen at high time-resolution in this study, stems from a physiological phenomenon, but it may not reflect what would occur in the brain — the physical interaction and anchoring of neurons to surrounding cells in the brain, in a three-dimensional array, is undoubtedly somewhat different from the two-dimensional array of a culture dish.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: A typical spiny cell in the central nervous system.
Figure 2: A sequence of spine movements, adapted from video imaging by Fischer et al.1.

References

  1. Fischer, M., Kaech, S., Knutti, D. & Matus, A. Neuron 20, 847–854 (1998).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Wagner, H.-J. J. Neurocytol. 9, 573–590 (1980).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Ter-Margarian, A. & Djamgoz, M. B. A. Neurosci. Lett. 147, 131–135 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Fifkova, E. Cell. Mol. Neurobiol. 5, 47–63 (1985).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Geinisman, Y. Hippocampus 3, 417–434 (1993).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Edwards, F. A. Physiol. Rev. 75, 759–787 (1995).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Physiology, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

    Frances A. Edwards

Authors
  1. Frances A. Edwards
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Edwards, F. Dancing dendrites. Nature 394, 129–130 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/28050

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/28050

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing