title: Refinement of the retinogeniculate synapse by bouton clustering.
abstract: Mammalian sensory circuits become refined over development in an activity-dependent manner. Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons from each eye first map to their target in the geniculate and then segregate into eye-specific layers by the removal and addition of axon branches. Once segregation is complete, robust functional remodeling continues as the number of afferent inputs to each geniculate neuron decreases from many to a few. It is widely assumed that large-scale axon retraction underlies this later phase of circuit refinement. On the contrary, RGC axons remain stable during functional pruning. Instead, presynaptic boutons grow in size and cluster during this process. Moreover, they exhibit dynamic spatial reorganization in response to sensory experience. Surprisingly, axon complexity decreases only after the completion of the thalamic critical period. Therefore, dynamic bouton redistribution along a broad axon backbone represents an unappreciated form of plasticity underlying developmental wiring and rewiring in the CNS.
authors.affiliation: F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Y Kate
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: SuHong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Litvina
authors.affiliation: F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Jose
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morales
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Sanes
authors.affiliation: F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: chinfei.chen@childrens.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Chinfei
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology*; D005829:Geniculate Bodies / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D017729:Presynaptic Terminals / Q000502:physiology; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology*; D012165:Retinal Ganglion Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology*