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Neuroscience

Astrocytes as aide-mémoires

Nature volume 463, pages 169–170 (2010)Cite this article

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Memory formation is known to occur at the level of synaptic contacts between neurons. It therefore comes as a surprise that another type of brain cell, the astrocyte, is also involved in establishing memory.

Memory is the result of long-lasting changes in synaptic activity usually involving the activation of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) — a special class of receptor for the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate. Memory formation has always been thought to depend on events occurring exclusively in neurons. But the brain possesses another cell population, glial cells, which include the highly ramified, star-shaped astrocytes. Despite their abundance — they make up 90% of all human brain cells — astrocytes have been relatively overlooked in the search for mechanisms of memory formation because they lack electrical excitability and do not communicate like neurons do. But astrocytes are not silent; they display another type of excitability involving changes in the intracellular concentration of calcium ions (Ca2+). In this issue (page 232), Henneberger et al.1 show that one function of the increase in astrocyte Ca2+ is to trigger the release of molecules required for establishing synaptic memory.

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Figure 1: Astrocytes and synaptic memory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mirko Santello and Andrea Volterra are in the Department of Cell Biology and Morphology, University of Lausanne, Rue du Bugnon 9, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland. andrea.volterra@unil.ch,

    Mirko Santello & Andrea Volterra

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  1. Mirko Santello
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  2. Andrea Volterra
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Santello, M., Volterra, A. Astrocytes as aide-mémoires. Nature 463, 169–170 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/463169a

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