Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 33, Issue 2, Pages 678-686Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1404-12.2013
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Funding
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
- National Science Foundation [0845285]
- National Institutes of Health [T32 DC008072]
- Burroughs Wellcome Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems [0845285] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Learning new tasks has been associated with increased growth and stabilization of new dendritic spines. We examined whether long-term potentiation (LTP), a key cellular mechanism thought to underlie learning, plays a role in selective stabilization of individual new spines during circuit plasticity. Using two-photon glutamate uncaging, we stimulated nascent spines on dendrites of rat hippocampal CA1 neurons with patterns that induce LTP and then monitored spine survival rates using time-lapse imaging. Remarkably, we found that LTP-inducing stimuli increased the long-term survivorship (>14 h) of individual new spines. Activity-induced new spine stabilization required NMDA receptor activation and was specific for stimuli that induced LTP. Moreover, abrogating CaMKII binding to the NMDA receptor abolished activity-induced new spine stabilization. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that, in addition to enhancing the efficacy of preexisting synapses, LTP-inducing stimuli promote the transition of nascent spines from a short-lived, transient state to a longer-lived, persistent state.
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