Clustered Dynamics of Inhibitory Synapses and Dendritic Spines in the Adult Neocortex

A key feature of the mammalian brain is its capacity to adapt in response to experience, in part by remodeling of synaptic connections between neurons. Excitatory synapse rearrangements have been monitored in vivo by observation of dendritic spine dynamics, but lack of a vital marker for inhibitory...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chen, Jerry L., Villa, Katherine Leigh, Cha, Jae Won, So, Peter T. C., Kubota, Yoshiyuki, Nedivi, Elly
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Elsevier B.V. 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91709
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6791-286X
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1710-0767
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4698-6488
Description
Summary:A key feature of the mammalian brain is its capacity to adapt in response to experience, in part by remodeling of synaptic connections between neurons. Excitatory synapse rearrangements have been monitored in vivo by observation of dendritic spine dynamics, but lack of a vital marker for inhibitory synapses has precluded their observation. Here, we simultaneously monitor in vivo inhibitory synapse and dendritic spine dynamics across the entire dendritic arbor of pyramidal neurons in the adult mammalian cortex using large-volume, high-resolution dual-color two-photon microscopy. We find that inhibitory synapses on dendritic shafts and spines differ in their distribution across the arbor and in their remodeling kinetics during normal and altered sensory experience. Further, we find inhibitory synapse and dendritic spine remodeling to be spatially clustered and that clustering is influenced by sensory input. Our findings provide in vivo evidence for local coordination of inhibitory and excitatory synaptic rearrangements.