Optical analysis of AMPAR-mediated synaptic scaling in mouse hippocampus

Immunolabeling of surface AMPA receptors (AMPARs) can be used for in vivo or ex vivo examination of synaptic scaling, a type of homeostatic plasticity. Here, we present a protocol to analyze changes in synaptic weights using immunohistochemistry for surface AMPARs coupled with optical imaging analysis. We detail immunostaining of AMPARs in mouse brain sections, followed by confocal imaging of surface AMPARs in dendritic region of hippocampal CA1. We then describe using Fiji/ImageJ and rank order plots for analyzing synaptic weight. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Suzuki et al. (2021).