Nature Neuroscience8, 791 - 796 (2005)
Published online: 8 May 2005; | doi:10.1038/nn1464
Reversible blockade of experience-dependent plasticity by calcineurin in mouse visual cortex
Yupeng Yang1, Quentin S Fischer1, Ying Zhang2, Karsten Baumgärtel3, Isabelle M Mansuy3
& Nigel W Daw1
1
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 USA.
2
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269 USA.
3
Brain Research Institute, Medical Faculty of the University of Zürich, Department of Biology of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
Numerous protein kinases have been implicated in visual cortex plasticity, but the role of serine/threonine protein phosphatases has not yet been established. Calcineurin, the only known Ca2+/calmodulin-activated protein phosphatase in the brain, has been identified as a molecular constraint on synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus and on memory. Using transgenic mice overexpressing calcineurin inducibly in forebrain neurons, we now provide evidence that calcineurin is also involved in ocular dominance plasticity. A transient increase in calcineurin activity is found to prevent the shift of responsiveness in the visual cortex following monocular deprivation, and this effect is reversible. These results imply that the balance between protein kinases and phosphatases is critical for visual cortex plasticity.
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