Synaptic plasticity articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    In glioma, malignant synapses hijack mechanisms of synaptic plasticity to increase glutamate-dependent currents in tumour cells and the formation of neuron–glioma synapses, thereby promoting tumour proliferation and progression.

    • Kathryn R. Taylor
    • , Tara Barron
    •  & Michelle Monje

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several independent lines of evidence demonstrated long-term potentiation induction by a structural function of calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II rather than by its enzymatic activity.

    • Jonathan E. Tullis
    • , Matthew E. Larsen
    •  & K. Ulrich Bayer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Analysis of the activity of CA1 cells in mice performing a learning task shows that the entorhinal cortex signals behavioural timescale synaptic plasticity to generate learning-related changes in the hippocampus.

    • Christine Grienberger
    •  & Jeffrey C. Magee

  • Article |

    Synaptotagmin-3 is identified as the presynaptic high-affinity calcium sensor to rapidly replenish synaptic vesicles to maintain steady synaptic transmission.

    • Dennis J. Weingarten
    • , Amita Shrestha
    •  & Skyler L. Jackman

  • Article |

    Single-cell tracing and optogenetics manipulation in mice are used to show how spatial tuning of individual pyramidal cells in CA1 can propagate to and be amplified by their local subnetwork of neurons.

    • Tristan Geiller
    • , Sadra Sadeh
    •  & Attila Losonczy

  • Article |

    Live neuron imaging and electron microscopy reconstruction shows that the selectivity of cortical neuron responses to visual stimuli arises from the total number of synapses activated rather than being dominated by a small number of strong synaptic inputs.

    • Benjamin Scholl
    • , Connon I. Thomas
    •  & David Fitzpatrick

  • Article |

    Novel experiences in mice lead to opposing effects on inhibition of Fos-activated hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons by parvalbumin- and cholecystokinin-expressing interneurons, revealing the roles of FOS and SCG2 in neural plasticity and consolidation of memories.

    • Ee-Lynn Yap
    • , Noah L. Pettit
    •  & Michael E. Greenberg

  • Letter |

    Live fluorescent imaging of murine hippocampal slices shows that NMDAR-dependent glutamate signalling leads to postsynaptic BDNF release, with associated signalling of its receptor, TrkB, on the same dendritic spine, suggesting autocrine BDNF signalling.

    • Stephen C. Harward
    • , Nathan G. Hedrick
    •  & James O. McNamara

  • Letter |

    Igf1 is identified in mice as an experience-induced gene that functions cell-autonomously to increase inhibitory input onto a disinhibitory subtype of GABAergic neurons in the cortex, affecting the downstream excitation–inhibition balance within circuits that regulate visual acuity, and providing a novel example of experience modulating neural plasticity.

    • A. R. Mardinly
    • , I. Spiegel
    •  & M. E. Greenberg

  • Letter |

    Synaptotagmin 7 is shown to be essential for synaptic facilitation at a variety of central synapses, and the results pave the way for future functional studies of short-term synaptic plasticity, a fundamental form of neuronal computation.

    • Skyler L. Jackman
    • , Josef Turecek
    •  & Wade G. Regehr

  • Article |

    A new light-activated probe that targets recently active neuronal spines for manipulation induces shrinkage of recently potentiated spines following a motor learning task; spine shrinkage disrupted learning, suggesting a causal relationship between the specific subset of targeted spines and the learned behaviour.

    • Akiko Hayashi-Takagi
    • , Sho Yagishita
    •  & Haruo Kasai

  • Letter |

    Neurons in the basolateral amygdala projecting to canonical fear or reward circuits undergo opposing changes in synaptic strength following fear or reward conditioning, and selectively activating these projection-target-defined neural populations causes either negative or positive reinforcement, respectively.

    • Praneeth Namburi
    • , Anna Beyeler
    •  & Kay M. Tye

  • Article |

    A study of pup retrieval behaviour in mice shows that oxytocin modulates cortical responses to pup calls specifically in the left auditory cortex; in virgin females, call-evoked responses were enhanced, thus increasing their salience, by pairing oxytocin delivery in the left auditory cortex with the calls, suggesting enhancement was a result of balancing the magnitude and timing of inhibition with excitation.

    • Bianca J. Marlin
    • , Mariela Mitre
    •  & Robert C. Froemke

  • Article |

    Ca2+ spikes are generated on different dendritic branches in the primary motor cortex of mice performing different motor learning tasks, causing long-lasting potentiation of postsynaptic dendritic spines; inactivation of a population of interneurons disrupts the spatial separation of Ca2+ spikes and persistent dendritic spine potentiation, suggesting that the generation of Ca2+ spikes on different dendritic branches is crucial for storing information in individual neurons.

    • Joseph Cichon
    •  & Wen-Biao Gan

  • Letter |

    Whole-cell recordings in mouse somatosensory cortex in vivo show that rhythmic sensory-whisker stimulation induces long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) in layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal cells, in the absence of somatic spikes, through long-lasting NMDAR-mediated depolarizations that are generated by synaptic networks originating from the posteromedial complex of the thalamus.

    • Frédéric Gambino
    • , Stéphane Pagès
    •  & Anthony Holtmaat

  • Article |

    X-ray crystal structures are presented of the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a calcium-permeable ion channel that opens upon binding of glutamate and glycine; glutamate is a key excitatory neurotransmitter and enhanced structural insight of this receptor may aid development of therapeutic small molecules.

    • Chia-Hsueh Lee
    • , Wei Lü
    •  & Eric Gouaux

  • Letter |

    A rodent study using optogenetics to induce long-term potentiation and long-term depression provides a causal link between synaptic plasticity and memory.

    • Sadegh Nabavi
    • , Rocky Fox
    •  & Roberto Malinow

  • Letter |

    A pair of Drosophila brain cells is identified and its activation alone is found to induce the fly’s complete feeding motor routine when artificially induced; suppressing or ablating these two neurons eliminates the sugar-induced feeding behaviour, but ablation of just one neuron results in asymmetric movements.

    • Thomas F. Flood
    • , Shinya Iguchi
    •  & Motojiro Yoshihara

  • Article |

    The minimal possible requirement for AMPA receptor trafficking during long-term potentiation is explored, revealing that no region of the receptor subunit is necessary, in contrast with previous work; the only requirement for LTP seems to be a large reserve of glutamate receptors.

    • Adam J. Granger
    • , Yun Shi
    •  & Roger A. Nicoll

  • Letter |

    Histone deacetylase 2 is shown to suppress genes involved in cognitive function epigenetically, potentially opening the door to treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases by developing HDAC2-selective inhibitors.

    • Johannes Gräff
    • , Damien Rei
    •  & Li-Huei Tsai

  • News & Views |

    How does the brain couple a fleeting sensory input to a delayed reward during learning? A study in locusts shows that coincident firing of neurons can 'mark' a neuronal connection for later modulation. See Article p.47

    • Timothy E. Holy

  • News & Views |

    Cocaine use causes lasting changes in behaviour by altering the strength of connections between neurons. The finding that these changes can be reversed in mice suggests strategies that could be used to treat drug addiction. See Letter p.71

    • Marina E. Wolf

  • Article |

    The mutations that underlie the diseases tuberous sclerosis complex and fragile X syndrome produce abnormalities in synaptic plasticity and function that can be corrected by treatments that modulate metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 in opposite directions.

    • Benjamin D. Auerbach
    • , Emily K. Osterweil
    •  & Mark F. Bear

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • Juha Laurén
    • , David A. Gimbel
    •  & Stephen M. Strittmatter

  • News & Views |

    The organization of behaviour as sequences of actions requires proper initiation and termination of each action sequence. The neural circuit that signals instructions to start and stop is now revealed.

    • Paolo Calabresi
    •  & Massimiliano Di Filippo

  • Letter |

    The deacetylase SIRT1 has been suggested to function in normal brain physiology, but it is not known whether it participates in higher-order brain functions. These authors demonstrate a role for SIRT1 in synaptic plasticity and memory formation, with activation enhancing synaptic strength and memory formation. These effects were regulated through a post-transcriptional mechanism involving CREB activation and miR-134 production. This interplay represents another mechanism of plasticity regulation with behavioural consequences.

    • Jun Gao
    • , Wen-Yuan Wang
    •  & Li-Huei Tsai

  • News & Views |

    Neurons generate their output signal — the action potential — in a distinct region of the axon called the initial segment. The location and extent of this trigger zone can be modified by neural activity to control excitability.

    • Jan Gründemann
    •  & Michael Häusser

  • Letter |

    Although explored in the rodent, the relationship between single neuron activity, oscillations and behavioural learning is unknown in humans. Here, successful memory formation in humans was predicted by the coordination of spike timing relative to the local theta oscillation. These data provide a direct connection between the behavioural modulation of oscillations and plasticity within specific circuits.

    • Ueli Rutishauser
    • , Ian B. Ross
    •  & Erin M. Schuman

  • Letter |

    The involvement of astroglia in long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic transmission remains controversial. Clamping internal Ca2+ in individual astrocytes in the CA1 area of the hippocampus is now shown to block LTP induction at nearby excitatory synapses through an effect on the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor. This LTP blockade can be reversed by exogenous D-serine, normally released in a Ca2+-dependent manner from astrocytes.

    • Christian Henneberger
    • , Thomas Papouin
    •  & Dmitri A. Rusakov

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