Synapse-specific and size-dependent mechanisms of spine structural plasticity accompanying synaptic weakening

摘要

As neural circuits are established during development and modified during learning, their optimization and fine-tuning involves the weakening and loss of superfluous synaptic connections. In the mammalian cerebral cortex, these functional changes in circuits are supported by structural changes in dendritic spines, the microscopic protrusions (volumes of ～0.001-1 μm~3) from neuronal dendrites that serve as the primary post-synaptic sites for excitatory synaptic connections (1).