Roles of serine/threonine phosphatases in hippocampal synaptic plasticity

The regulation of glutamate-mediated excitatory neurotransmission has a critical role in many aspects of behaviour. Great effort has gone into understanding the signal transduction cascades and effecters recruited in these processes, and protein phosphorylation has been identified as an important element. Although initial research in the field focused on the activity-dependent activation of kinases and the I kinase dependence of various forms of synaptic plasticity, it has become increasingly clear that phosphatases have an equally dynamic and critical role in the activity-dependent alterations of synaptic transmission. Here, we review the roles of serine/threonine phosphatases in synaptic plasticity.