Journal
TRENDS IN NEUROSCIENCES
Volume 34, Issue 8, Pages 393-400Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2011.06.004
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Funding
- Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- National Institutes of Health
- Heart and Stroke Foundation
- Multiple Sclerosis Society
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Axons have evolved to acquire myelination, enabling denser packing and speedier transmission. Although myelin is considered a passive insulator, recent reports suggest a more dynamic role. Axons, in turn, are endowed with neurotransmitter release and uptake systems along their trunks. Based on these observations, I argue that there may exist a new type of chemical synapse between axon and myelin, one that supports activity-dependent communication between the two. This raises intriguing possibilities of dynamic fine-tuning of the myelin sheath even in adulthood, efficient recruitment of resources for myelin maintenance and bi-directional signaling, whereby the axon informs its myelinating cell of its metabolic needs proportionally to the electrical traffic it is transmitting. This would also have implications for de- and dysmyelinating diseases should this axo-myelinic synapse become dysfunctional.
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