Genetic evidence that relative synaptic efficacy biases the outcome of synaptic competition

Mario Buffelli, Robert W. Burgess, Guoping Feng, Corrinne G. Lobe, Jeff W. Lichtman and Joshua R. Sanes ()
Additional contact information
Mario Buffelli: Washington University School of Medicine
Robert W. Burgess: Washington University School of Medicine
Guoping Feng: Washington University School of Medicine
Corrinne G. Lobe: Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Science Centre
Jeff W. Lichtman: Washington University School of Medicine
Joshua R. Sanes: Washington University School of Medicine

Nature, 2003, vol. 424, issue 6947, 430-434

Abstract: Abstract Synaptic activity drives synaptic rearrangement in the vertebrate nervous system; indeed, this appears to be a main way in which experience shapes neural connectivity1,2. One rearrangement that occurs in many parts of the nervous system during early postnatal life is a competitive process called ‘synapse elimination’3,4. At the neuromuscular junction, where synapse elimination has been analysed in detail, muscle fibres are initially innervated by multiple axons, then all but one are withdrawn and the ‘winner’ enlarges4,5,6. In support of the idea that synapse elimination is activity dependent, it is slowed or speeded when total neuromuscular activity is decreased or increased, respectively4,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. However, most hypotheses about synaptic rearrangement postulate that change depends less on total activity than on the relative activity of the competitors1,2,3,4,13,14. Intuitively, it seems that the input best able to excite its postsynaptic target would be most likely to win the competition, but some theories and results make other predictions14,15,16,17,18. Here we use a genetic method to selectively inhibit neurotransmission from one of two inputs to a single target cell. We show that more powerful inputs are strongly favoured competitors during synapse elimination.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01844 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:424:y:2003:i:6947:d:10.1038_nature01844

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature01844

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().