PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - F. Woodward Hopf
AU  - Jack Waters
AU  - Samar Mehta
AU  - Stephen J. Smith
TI  - Stability and Plasticity of Developing Synapses in Hippocampal Neuronal Cultures
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.22-03-00775.2002
DP  - 2002 Feb 01
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 775--781
VI  - 22
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/3/775.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/3/775.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2002 Feb 01; 22
AB  - To explore mechanisms governing the formation, stability, and elimination of synapses during neuronal development, we used FM 1–43 fluorescence imaging to track vesicle turnover at >7000 individually identified developing synapses between embryonic rat hippocampal neurons in culture. The majority of presynaptic boutons were stable in efficacy and position over a period of 1.5 hr. Activity, evoked by burst-patterned field stimulation, decreased presynaptic function across the population of boutons, an effect that required NMDA receptor activation. Decreased FM 1–43 staining correlated with low synapsin-I and synaptophysin immunoreactivities, suggesting that decreased presynaptic function was commensurate with synaptic disassembly. These observations provide new information on the stability of developing presynaptic function and suggest that NMDA receptor activation may regulate the stability of developing synapses.