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
. 2003 Jul 24;424(6947):430-4.
doi: 10.1038/nature01844.

Genetic evidence that relative synaptic efficacy biases the outcome of synaptic competition

Mario Buffelli  1 , Robert W Burgess, Guoping Feng, Corrinne G Lobe, Jeff W Lichtman, Joshua R Sanes
Affiliations

Genetic evidence that relative synaptic efficacy biases the outcome of synaptic competition

Mario Buffelli et al. Nature. .

Abstract

Synaptic activity drives synaptic rearrangement in the vertebrate nervous system; indeed, this appears to be a main way in which experience shapes neural connectivity. One rearrangement that occurs in many parts of the nervous system during early postnatal life is a competitive process called 'synapse elimination'. At the neuromuscular junction, where synapse elimination has been analysed in detail, muscle fibres are initially innervated by multiple axons, then all but one are withdrawn and the 'winner' enlarges. In support of the idea that synapse elimination is activity dependent, it is slowed or speeded when total neuromuscular activity is decreased or increased, respectively. However, most hypotheses about synaptic rearrangement postulate that change depends less on total activity than on the relative activity of the competitors. Intuitively, it seems that the input best able to excite its postsynaptic target would be most likely to win the competition, but some theories and results make other predictions. Here we use a genetic method to selectively inhibit neurotransmission from one of two inputs to a single target cell. We show that more powerful inputs are strongly favoured competitors during synapse elimination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances