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The Synapse

The Synapse

Neurons communicate with one another by passing on their electrical signals to other neurons. A synapse is the location where two neurons meet to exchange signals. At the synapse, the neuron that sends the signal is called the presynaptic cell, while the neuron that receives the message is called the postsynaptic cell. Note that most neurons can be both presynaptic and postsynaptic, as they both transmit and receive information.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 2, 2025

Presynaptically Silent Synapses Studied with Light Microscopy

Presynaptically Silent Synapses Studied with Light Microscopy

Published on: January 4, 2010

Functional subtypes of synaptic dynamics in mouse and human.

John Beninger¹, Julian Rossbroich², Katalin Tóth¹

¹Center for Neural Dynamics and Artificial Intelligence, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1H 8M5, Canada; uOttawa Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1H 8M5, Canada; Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1H 8M5, Canada.

|February 16, 2024

Summary

Researchers identified distinct functional subtypes of synaptic dynamics in the brain. Analyzing glutamatergic cortical connections in rodents and humans revealed a stable clustering, improving our understanding of neural information transmission.

Keywords:

CP: Cell biology CP: Neuroscience burst coding cell types human physiology machine learning model-based characterization neural coding physiological calcium short-term plasticity synaptic physiology

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Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 2, 2025

Presynaptically Silent Synapses Studied with Light Microscopy

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Published on: January 4, 2010

Subcellular Fractionation for the Isolation of Synaptic Components from the Murine Brain

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Published on: September 14, 2022

Single Synapse Indicators of Glutamate Release and Uptake in Acute Brain Slices from Normal and Huntington Mice

Single Synapse Indicators of Glutamate Release and Uptake in Acute Brain Slices from Normal and Huntington Mice

Published on: March 11, 2020

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Computational Biology

Background:

Synaptic transmission exhibits heterogeneity, often classified into distinct functional types.
The precise number and characteristics of these synaptic subtypes remain unclear.
Understanding synaptic dynamics is crucial for deciphering neural information processing.

Purpose of the Study:

To characterize functionally distinct subtypes of synaptic dynamics using a model-based approach.
To determine the number and properties of synaptic clusters in cortical connections.
To investigate the stability of these functional subtypes across species (rodent and human).

Main Methods:

Utilized a large dataset of glutamatergic cortical connections.
Applied model-based characterization and clustering algorithms.
Compared clustering results between rodent and human neural data.

Main Results:

Identified five distinct clusters representing functional subtypes of synaptic dynamics in rodent data.
Observed a highly similar number of clusters when applying the same method to human data, indicating stable clustering.
The identified clusters partially converged with known transgenic-associated subtypes.

Conclusions:

Synaptic dynamics in the cortex are shaped by a nuanced dictionary of functional subtypes.
The findings support the existence of stable, conserved synaptic functional classes across species.
This characterization provides insights into the fundamental motifs of information transmission in the brain.