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Related Concept Videos

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Long-term Potentiation

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Long-term potentiation, or LTP, is one of the ways by which synaptic plasticity—changes in the strength of chemical synapses—can occur in the brain. LTP is the process of synaptic strengthening that occurs over time between pre and postsynaptic neuronal connections. The synaptic strengthening of LTP works in opposition to the synaptic weakening of long-term depression (LTD) and together are the main mechanisms that underlie learning and memory.
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Plasticity is the property where an object loses its elasticity and undergoes irreversible deformation, even after the deformation forces are eliminated. If a material deforms irreversibly without increasing stress or load, then this is called ideal plasticity. For example, when a force is applied to an aluminum rod, it changes its shape, but it does not return to its original shape once the force is removed. Plastic deformation or ductility is thus a permanent deformation or change in the...
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Synaptic integration mainly includes the summation of graded potentials. Graded potentials, regardless of their type, cause subtle alterations in membrane voltage, resulting in either depolarization or hyperpolarization. These incremental changes, when combined or summed, can propel the neuron toward its threshold. Consider, for example, a membrane experiencing a +15 mV shift, causing it to depolarize from -70 mV to -55 mV. In this scenario, graded potentials govern the membrane's ability to...
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Evaluation of Synaptic Multiplicity Using Whole-cell Patch-clamp Electrophysiology
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Nanoconnectomic upper bound on the variability of synaptic plasticity.

Thomas M Bartol1, Cailey Bromer1, Justin Kinney1,2

  • 1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, United States.

Elife
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The brain stores at least 4.7 bits of information per synapse using synaptic plasticity. This precision requires averaging neural activity over several minutes due to variability.

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ConnectomeNeural Information ProcessingSynaptic Structure and Functionneurosciencerat

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Computational Neuroscience
  • Synaptic Plasticity

Background:

  • Computer information is measured in bits, while brain information storage capacity at synapses remains an open question.
  • Synaptic plasticity, influenced by activity history, is key to neural information processing.
  • Understanding synaptic information capacity is crucial for deciphering brain function.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To estimate the information storage capacity of individual synapses.
  • To investigate the role of synaptic size and plasticity in information encoding.
  • To determine the number of distinguishable synaptic strengths.

Main Methods:

  • Analyzed electron microscopy reconstructions of hippocampal neuropil.
  • Identified single axons forming multiple synaptic contacts on the same dendrites.
  • Measured synaptic size (spine head/neck diameter) and correlated it with synaptic efficacy.

Main Results:

  • Found a strong correlation between synaptic size and efficacy, enabling plasticity estimation.
  • Identified pairs of synapses with shared activity histories and nearly identical sizes.
  • Determined a minimum of 26 distinguishable synaptic strengths, equating to 4.7 bits per synapse.

Conclusions:

  • Synapses can store a minimum of 4.7 bits of information.
  • Synaptic size is a reliable indicator of synaptic strength and plasticity.
  • Accurate estimation of synaptic information requires averaging activity over minutes due to stochastic variability.