Long-term potentiation

Adult male rodents have long been known to show stronger hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) and learning than females. Le et al. find that this sex difference is reversed in pre-pubescent animals, and identify a female-specific mechanism that increases LTP threshold and decreases spatial memory in females after puberty.

Selective and transient erasure of LTP reveals the roles of synaptic plasticity at multiple stages of memory consolidation.

In mice, long-term potentiation of hippocampal–nucleus accumbens synapses is required for the formation of reward-related memories.

Dendritic mitochondria in stimulated neurons undergo fission that is required for long-term potentiation.

Protein kinases are key regulators of excitatory synapse plasticity. In this issue, using novel optical reporters of protein kinase C (PKC) activity, Colgan et al. identify PKCα as critical for integrating NMDA receptor and neurotrophin signaling to control dendritic spine structural plasticity, synaptic potentiation, and learning and memory.