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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Improved Preparation and Preservation of Hippocampal Mouse Slices for a Very Stable and Reproducible Recording of Long-term Potentiation
Published on: June 26, 2013
Long-term potentiation of neuron-glia synapses mediated by Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors
Woo-Ping Ge1, Xiu-Juan Yang, Zhijun Zhang
1Institute of Neuroscience and Key Laboratory of Neurobiology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China. shumin@ion.ac.cn
Abstract:
Interactions between neurons and glial cells in the brain may serve important functions in the development, maintenance, and plasticity of neural circuits. Fast neuron-glia synaptic transmission has been found between hippocampal neurons and NG2 cells, a distinct population of macroglia-like cells widely distributed in the brain. We report that these neuron-glia synapses undergo activity-dependent modifications analogous to long-term potentiation (LTP) at excitatory synapses, a hallmark of neuronal plasticity. However, unlike the induction of LTP at many neuron-neuron synapses, both induction and expression of LTP at neuron-NG2 synapses involve Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors on NG2 cells.
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