Journal
CELL
Volume 174, Issue 1, Pages 59-+Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.05.002
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- ELSC
- Azrieli Fellowship
- Israeli Centers of Research Excellence Program [1916/12]
- Israel Science Foundation (ISF) [1946/13]
- NARSAD Young Investigator grant
- Abisch-Frenkel Foundation
- Alon Fellowship
- Milton-Rosenbaum Foundation
- ISF
- Einstein Foundation
- National Institute for Psychobiology
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Astrocytes respond to neuronal activity and were shown to be necessary for plasticity and memory. To test whether astrocytic activity is also sufficient to generate synaptic potentiation and enhance memory, we expressed the Gq-coupled receptor hM3Dq in CA1 astrocytes, allowing their activation by a designer drug. We discovered that astrocytic activation is not only necessary for synaptic plasticity, but also sufficient to induce NMDA-dependent de novo long-term potentiation in the hippocampus that persisted after astrocytic activation ceased. In vivo, astrocytic activation enhanced memory allocation; i.e., it increased neuronal activity in a task-specific way only when coupled with learning, but not in home-cagedmice. Furthermore, astrocytic activation using either a chemogenetic or an optogenetic tool during acquisition resulted in memory recall enhancement on the following day. Conversely, directly increasing neuronal activity resulted in dramatic memory impairment. Our findings that astrocytes induce plasticity and enhance memory may have important clinical implications for cognitive augmentation treatments.
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