Abstract
Long-term forms of synaptic plasticity that may underlie learning and memory have been suggested to depend on changes in the number of synapses between presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons. Here we have investigated a form of synaptic plasticity in cultures of hippocampal CA3 and CA1 neurons related to the late phase of long-term potentiation, which depends on cAMP and protein synthesis. Using the fluorescent dye FM 1-43 to label active presynaptic terminals, we find that a membrane permeable analog of cAMP enhances the number of active presynaptic terminals and that this effect requires protein synthesis.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Kelsey Martin for help and advice throughout this project, Danny Baranes for help in initial experiments and Eric Odell for help with the figures. We also thank Craig Bailey, Vadim Bolshakov, Mary Chen, Bob Hawkins, Kelsey Martin and Paul Pavlidis for comments on the manuscript. This work was partially supported by a grant from NIH and HHMI.
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Ma, L., Zablow, L., Kandel, E. et al. Cyclic AMP induces functional presynaptic boutons in hippocampal CA3–CA1 neuronal cultures. Nat Neurosci 2, 24–30 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/4525
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4525