Structural basis of long-term potentiation in single dendritic spines

Masanori Matsuzaki, Naoki Honkura, Graham C. R. Ellis-Davies and Haruo Kasai ()
Additional contact information
Masanori Matsuzaki: National Institute for Physiological Sciences and The Graduate University of Advanced Studies (Sokendai)
Naoki Honkura: National Institute for Physiological Sciences and The Graduate University of Advanced Studies (Sokendai)
Graham C. R. Ellis-Davies: Drexel University College of Medicine
Haruo Kasai: National Institute for Physiological Sciences and The Graduate University of Advanced Studies (Sokendai)

Nature, 2004, vol. 429, issue 6993, 761-766

Abstract: Abstract Dendritic spines of pyramidal neurons in the cerebral cortex undergo activity-dependent structural remodelling1,2,3,4,5 that has been proposed to be a cellular basis of learning and memory6. How structural remodelling supports synaptic plasticity4,5, such as long-term potentiation7, and whether such plasticity is input-specific at the level of the individual spine has remained unknown. We investigated the structural basis of long-term potentiation using two-photon photolysis of caged glutamate at single spines of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons8. Here we show that repetitive quantum-like photorelease (uncaging) of glutamate induces a rapid and selective enlargement of stimulated spines that is transient in large mushroom spines but persistent in small spines. Spine enlargement is associated with an increase in AMPA-receptor-mediated currents at the stimulated synapse and is dependent on NMDA receptors, calmodulin and actin polymerization. Long-lasting spine enlargement also requires Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II. Our results thus indicate that spines individually follow Hebb's postulate for learning. They further suggest that small spines are preferential sites for long-term potentiation induction, whereas large spines might represent physical traces of long-term memory.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02617 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:429:y:2004:i:6993:d:10.1038_nature02617

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature02617

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 ().