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Commentary
Cell Science Reviews Vol 5 No 4
ISSN 1742-8130 |
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Spines gone wild?
Aaron W. McGee 1 & Joshua T. Trachtenberg 2
1 The Saban Research Institute, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California &
2 Department of Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles
Received 21st April © Cell Science 2009
How fast do functional synapses form? New light is shined on this old question in a recent report in which the authors use time-lapse 2-photon laser scanning microscopy to identify stable and newly grown spines in hippocampal slices. 2-photon glutamate uncaging is then used to measure AMPA-mediated currents in these spines. Remarkably, they find that newly grown spines have, volume for volume, the same glutamate conductance as stable spines. This conclusion suggests that the overproduction of synapses in early postnatal development is a loud and promiscuous affair - a far cry from the quiet, don't speak until spoken to 'silent' synapse model of synaptic potentiation.
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