Cellular and molecular mechanisms of astrocyte plasticity in learning and memory

Learning and memory arise from coordinated activity-dependent plasticity across neural circuits and brain regions. Astrocytes are increasingly recognized as active contributors to learning and memory via their roles in sensing, integrating, and responding to contextual information. Astrocytes modulate synaptic transmission, engage in circuit-specific signaling, and display context-dependent calcium dynamics that influence behavior. In this review, we focus on astrocyte functions across rodent models that display plasticity traditionally ascribed to neurons, including activity-dependent molecular and structural plasticity, circuit-level modulation, ensemble-like networks, and transcriptional, translational, proteomic, and epigenetic plasticity. Together, these findings redefine plasticity as an emergent property of the brain, regardless of cell type, in the context of learning and memory, and highlight the need for integrative, cell type-specific approaches to understanding complex behaviors.