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Updated: Apr 27, 2026

Caspase-3 Activity in the Rat Amygdala Measured by Spectrofluorometry After Myocardial Infarction
Published on: January 12, 2016
Non-apoptotic role of caspase-3 in synapse refinement
1Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Abstract:
Caspases, a family of cysteine proteases, mediate programmed cell death during early neural development and neurodegeneration, as well as following neurotoxic insults. Notably, accumulating lines of evidence have shown non-apoptotic roles of caspases in the structural and functional plasticity of neuronal circuits under physiological conditions, such as growth-cone dynamics and axonal/dendritic pruning, as well as neuronal excitability and plasticity. Here, we summarize recent progress on the roles of caspases in synaptic refinement.
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