Learning visualised, on the double
Barinaga, M.
Science 286(5445): 1661
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 10610556 Document Number: 511560
In the current Nature, a team led by neuroscientist Dominique Muller of the University of Geneva in Switzerland reveals a dramatic change in synapses--the connections between neurons--when the brain learns. Researchers long believed that during learning, the synapses get stronger, and for years neuroscientists have focused on chemical changes that boost synapse strength, although more recent work suggests that synapses change structurally, also. The Geneva team found that some strengthened synapses actually double, with a second synapse rapidly forming next to the one that was active. Tobias Bonhoeffer of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Munich, Germany, describes the work as a fine addition to the growing story of how synapses reshape when they strengthen.