Spatiotemporal dynamics of dendritic spines in the living brain.
Dendritic spines are ubiquitous postsynaptic sites of most excitatory synapses in the mammalian brain, and thus may serve as structural indicators of functional synapses. Recent works have suggested that neuronal coding of memories may be associated with rapid alterations in spine formation and elimination. Technological advances have enabled researchers to study spine dynamics in vivo during development as well as under various physiological and pathological conditions. We believe that better understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of spine dynamics will help elucidate the principles of experience-dependent circuit modification and information processing in the living brain.
Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
Chia-Chien
CC
Chen
Department of Biological Sciences and James H. Clark Center, Stanford University Stanford, CA, USA.
Ju
J
Lu
Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California at Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
Yi
Y
Zuo
cerebral cortex; dendritic spine; experience-dependent plasticity; in vivo; neural circuit; two-photon imaging