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Neuroscience

Light moulds plastic brains

Nature volume 456, pages 177–178 (2008)Cite this article

In tadpoles, the number of neurons expressing the neurotransmitter dopamine increases on exposure to light. Such plasticity might allow animals to match their brains' response to environmental stimuli.

Nervous systems are known to adapt to environmental inputs. But such plasticity has been thought to involve modifications of neural circuits and communication between neurons via synaptic junctions — as in learning and memory — rather than alterations in the numbers of distinct classes of neuron. On page 195 of this issue, Dulcis and Spitzer1 challenge this view. They show that, when frog tadpoles (Xenopus laevis) are exposed to bright light, the number of dopamine-secreting (dopaminergic) neurons in the animals' brains increases, allowing them to adapt more rapidly to subsequent exposure to light.

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Figure 1: Plasticity in the tadpole pigmentation circuit.

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  1. Stefan Thor is in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linkoping University, Linkoping SE-58183, Sweden. stefan.thor@liu.se,

    Stefan Thor

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Thor, S. Light moulds plastic brains. Nature 456, 177–178 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/456177a

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