Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2001 Nov 20;32(4):673-82.
doi: 10.1016/s0896-6273(01)00500-1.

Inactivity produces increases in neurotransmitter release and synapse size

V N Murthy  1 , T Schikorski, C F Stevens, Y Zhu
Affiliations
Free article

Inactivity produces increases in neurotransmitter release and synapse size

V N Murthy et al. Neuron. .
Free article

Abstract

When hippocampal synapses in culture are pharmacologically silenced for several days, synaptic strength increases. The structural correlate of this change in strength is an increase in the size of the synapses, with all synaptic components--active zone, postsynaptic density, and bouton--becoming larger. Further, the number of docked vesicles and the total number of vesicles per synapse increases, although the number of docked vesicles per area of active zone is unchanged. In parallel with these anatomical changes, the physiologically measured size of the readily releasable pool (RRP) and the release probability are increased. Ultrastructural analysis of individual synapses in which the RRP was previously measured reveals that, within measurement error, the same number of vesicles are docked as are estimated to be in the RRP.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

Substances

LinkOut - more resources