Publication Date:
2005-11-08
Description:
In mammalian excitatory neurons, dendritic spines are separated from dendrites by thin necks. Diffusion across the neck limits the chemical and electrical isolation of each spine. We found that spine/dendrite diffusional coupling is heterogeneous and uncovered a class of diffusionally isolated spines. The barrier to diffusion posed by the neck and the number of diffusionally isolated spines is bidirectionally regulated by neuronal activity. Furthermore, coincident synaptic activation and postsynaptic action potentials rapidly restrict diffusion across the neck. The regulation of diffusional coupling provides a possible mechanism for determining the amplitude of postsynaptic potentials and the accumulation of plasticity-inducing molecules within the spine head.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Bloodgood, Brenda L -- Sabatini, Bernardo L -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2005 Nov 4;310(5749):866-9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, 220 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272125" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Action Potentials
;
Animals
;
Cytoplasm/physiology
;
Dendrites/*physiology
;
Dendritic Spines/*physiology
;
Diffusion
;
Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials
;
Fluorescence
;
GABA-A Receptor Antagonists
;
Glutamic Acid/metabolism
;
Green Fluorescent Proteins/metabolism
;
Hippocampus/physiology
;
Neurons/*physiology
;
Organ Culture Techniques
;
Patch-Clamp Techniques
;
Pyramidal Cells/physiology
;
Rats
;
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
;
Receptors, AMPA/antagonists & inhibitors/metabolism
;
Receptors, GABA-A/metabolism
;
Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate/antagonists & inhibitors/metabolism
;
Synapses/*physiology
;
Synaptic Transmission
;
Transfection
;
Viscosity
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
