Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Silent synapses in the immature visual cortex: layer-specific developmental regulation.

Simon Rumpel1, Gunnar Kattenstroth, Kurt Gottmann

  • 1Department of Cell Physiology, Ruhr-University Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany.

Journal of Neurophysiology
|February 6, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Auditory perceptual maps in humans and mice share common structures and predict perceptual decisions in discrimination learning.

Communications psychology·2026
Same author

STARR-CRAAVT: A platform to identify cell type-specific regulatory elements for next-generation gene therapy.

iScience·2026
Same author

Representational geometry of sounds in the auditory cortex explains biases in perceptual decision-making in mice.

Cell reports·2026
Same author

Representational drift reflects ongoing balancing of stochastic changes by Hebbian learning.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

Revealing acute consequences of rapid degradation of synaptic fusion proteins at individual synapses using Auxin-Inducible Degron 2 technology.

Communications biology·2025
Same author

Statistical learning and representational drift: A dynamic substrate for memories.

Current opinion in neurobiology·2025

Neocortical development reveals distinct silent synapse patterns. Superficial layers initially have few silent synapses, while deep layers start with many, challenging the "inside-first" synaptogenesis model.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Biology
  • Synaptic Plasticity

Background:

  • Central glutamatergic synapses mature from silent synapses (NMDA-receptor only) to functional synapses (AMPA and NMDA receptors).
  • Neocortical development follows an "inside-first, outside-last" layering pattern.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the developmental trajectory of silent synapses in superficial versus deep neocortical layers.
  • To test if superficial layers exhibit a higher fraction of silent synapses, aligning with the "inside-first, outside-last" synaptogenesis model.

Main Methods:

  • Electrophysiological analysis of glutamatergic synapses.
  • Study conducted on acute rat visual cortex slices during postnatal development.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Layer VI pyramidal neurons showed a high incidence of silent synapses early postnatally, which decreased with development.
  • Superficial layer (II/III) pyramidal neurons initially had a very low fraction of silent synapses, which increased by the second postnatal week before declining.
  • Developmental regulation of silent synapses differed significantly between neocortical layers.

Conclusions:

  • The initial absence of silent synapses in superficial layers suggests a subset of constitutively functional synapses.
  • This early functionality may support spontaneous activity and activity-dependent synapse maturation.
  • Synaptogenesis patterns in neocortical layers are layer-specific and do not strictly follow the proposed "inside-first, outside-last" model for silent synapse formation.