Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 365, Issue 1551, Pages 2375-2381Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0313
Keywords
astrocytes; intracellular Ca2+; gliotransmitter release; neuron-glia communication
Categories
Funding
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain [BFU2007-064 764]
- European Union [HEALTH-F2-2007-202 167]
- Cajal Blue Brain
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Numerous evidence demonstrates that astrocytes, a type of glial cell, are integral functional elements of the synapses, responding to neuronal activity and regulating synaptic transmission and plasticity. Consequently, they are actively involved in the processing, transfer and storage of information by the nervous system, which challenges the accepted paradigm that brain function results exclusively from neuronal network activity, and suggests that nervous system function actually arises from the activity of neuron-glia networks. Most of our knowledge of the properties and physiological consequences of the bidirectional communication between astrocytes and neurons resides at cellular and molecular levels. In contrast, much less is known at higher level of complexity, i.e. networks of cells, and the actual impact of astrocytes in the neuronal network function remains largely unexplored. In the present article, we summarize the current evidence that supports the notion that astrocytes are integral components of nervous system networks and we discuss some functional properties of intercellular signalling in neuron-glia networks.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available