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Sci. STKE, 11 March 2003
Vol. 2003, Issue 173, p. tw105
[DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.1732003tw105]

EDITORS' CHOICE

Neurobiology Guided by Experience

Synapses, the contacts between neurons, work more efficiently after being stimulated simultaneously by two inputs, a phenomenon thought to underlie certain types of learning. In tissue culture slices, this enhanced efficiency results from increased trafficking of one type of glutamate receptor, the AMPA receptors (AMPARs), into synapses (see Contractor and Heinemann). To test if this same mechanism operates in animals receiving environmental inputs, Takahashi et al. injected recombinant AMPARs to neurons in the rat barrel cortex with a Sindbus virus vector. They compared normal synapses in the barrel cortex at postnatal day 15, just after a period of rapid experience-dependent growth, with synapses corresponding to an area on the animal's face where the whiskers had been. The synapses subject to sensory experience through intact whiskers showed increased trafficking of AMPARs, whereas synapses deprived of whisker input did not.

A. Contractor, S. F. Heinemann, Glutamate receptor trafficking in synaptic plasticity. Science's STKE 2002, re1 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text] [Animation]

T. Takahashi, K. Svoboda, R. Malinow, Experience strengthening transmission by driving AMPA receptors into synapses. Science 299, 1585-1588 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]

Citation: Guided by Experience. Sci. STKE 2003, tw105 (2003).

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