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The Journal of Neuroscience, December 10, 2008, 28(50):13457-13466; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2702-08.2008

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Cellular/Molecular
Spine Neck Plasticity Controls Postsynaptic Calcium Signals through Electrical Compartmentalization

Åsa Grunditz,^1 * Niklaus Holbro,^1 * Lei Tian,¹ Yi Zuo,² and Thomas G. Oertner¹

¹Friedrich Miescher Institute, Maulbeerstrasse 66, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland, and ²Department for Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064

Correspondence should be addressed to Thomas G. Oertner, Friedrich Miescher Institute, Maulbeerstrasse 66, WRO-1066.4.10, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland. Email: thomas.oertner{at}fmi.ch

Dendritic spines have been proposed to function as electrical compartments for the active processing of local synaptic signals. However, estimates of the resistance between the spine head and the parent dendrite suggest that compartmentalization is not tight enough to electrically decouple the synapse. Here we show in acute hippocampal slices that spine compartmentalization is initially very weak, but increases dramatically upon postsynaptic depolarization. Using NMDA receptors as voltage sensors, we provide evidence that spine necks not only regulate diffusional coupling between spines and dendrites, but also control local depolarization of the spine head. In spines with high-resistance necks, presynaptic activity alone was sufficient to trigger calcium influx through NMDA receptors and R-type calcium channels. We conclude that calcium influx into spines, a key trigger for synaptic plasticity, is dynamically regulated by spine neck plasticity through a process of electrical compartmentalization.

Key words: dendritic spines; NMDA receptors; R-type channels; spine neck resistance; compartmental modeling; two-photon imaging

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Received June 12, 2008; revised Oct. 27, 2008; accepted Oct. 28, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Thomas G. Oertner, Friedrich Miescher Institute, Maulbeerstrasse 66, WRO-1066.4.10, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland. Email: thomas.oertner{at}fmi.ch

This article has been cited by other articles:

				L. M. Palmer and G. J. Stuart Membrane Potential Changes in Dendritic Spines during Action Potentials and Synaptic Input J. Neurosci., May 27, 2009; 29(21): 6897 - 6903. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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