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Long-term Potentiation of Perforant Pathway-dentate Gyrus Synapse in Freely Behaving Mice
Published on: November 29, 2013
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Long-term potentiation in an innexin-based electrical synapse.
Georg Welzel1, Stefan Schuster2
1Department of Animal Physiology, University of Bayreuth, 95440, Bayreuth, Germany. georg.welzel@uni-bayreuth.de.
Scientific Reports
|August 24, 2018
Summary
Long-term potentiation, a key brain function, is now found in innexin-based electrical synapses, not just connexin-based ones. This suggests ancient gap junctions also possessed this crucial plasticity mechanism.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cell Biology
- Molecular Biology
Background:
- Electrical synapses utilize gap junction proteins, specifically innexins (invertebrates) and connexins (vertebrates).
- While sharing membrane topology, functional similarities, like long-term potentiation (LTP), were primarily known only for connexin-based synapses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if long-term potentiation (LTP) is exclusive to connexin-based electrical synapses.
- To provide evidence for LTP in innexin-based electrical synapses.
Main Methods:
- Development of a quantitative method to measure gap-junction conductance.
- Application of this method to assess synaptic plasticity in innexin-based electrical synapses.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated unequivocal evidence of long-term potentiation (LTP) in an innexin-based electrical synapse.
- Established that the capacity for LTP is not unique to connexin-based synapses.
Conclusions:
- Long-term potentiation (LTP) is likely an ancestral property of gap junctions.
- Innexin-based synapses offer a valuable model for studying shared molecular mechanisms of electrical synapse plasticity.
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