title: A clustered plasticity model of long-term memory engrams.
abstract: Long-term memory and its putative synaptic correlates the late phases of both long-term potentiation and long-term depression require enhanced protein synthesis. On the basis of recent data on translation-dependent synaptic plasticity and on the supralinear effect of activation of nearby synapses on action potential generation, we propose a model for the formation of long-term memory engrams at the single neuron level. In this model, which we call clustered plasticity, local translational enhancement, along with synaptic tagging and capture, facilitates the formation of long-term memory engrams through bidirectional synaptic weight changes among synapses within a dendritic branch.
authors.affiliation: The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Arvind
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Govindarajan
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Kelleher
authors.forename: Susumu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tonegawa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*