Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience | New and Recent Articles

Obesity-driven synaptic dysfunction is increasingly recognized as a key mechanism linking metabolic disorders to neurodegenerative diseases. This review aims to explore the utility of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a translational model to investigate these mechanisms and screen peptide-based therapeutic strategies. Owing to their optical transparency, genetic tractability, and suitability for high-t…

The dentate gyrus is a key relay station that controls information transfer from the entorhinal cortex to the hippocampus proper. This process relies heavily on dendritic integration by dentate granule cells (GCs) of excitatory synaptic inputs from the medial and lateral entorhinal cortex via medial and lateral perforant paths (MPP and LPP, respectively). Inputs from the entorhinal cortex onto GC…

Activity-induced Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)—characterized as it is by rapid induction, synapse specificity, and remarkable persistence—has long been considered a primary substrate for memory encoding. There has however been considerable debate about the cellular mechanisms responsible for producing the potentiated state. It seems that much of the confusion can be traced to an implicit assumptio…

Electrical brain stimulation has been used to treat epilepsy with therapeutic success, but without complete understanding of its cellular mechanisms of seizure suppression. Using acute human brain slices obtained from pharmaco-resistant epilepsy patients, we delivered high-frequency, high-intensity extracellular electrical stimulation while recording from neocortical layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons (…

Synaptic failure is one of the earliest and most significant contributors to the cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), preceding extensive neuronal loss. Although amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of tau protein characterize the disease, memory impairment primarily results from the gradual deterioration of synaptic communications. This decline is caused by a co…

ObjectiveImmediate postictal potentiation (PIP), a unique phenomenon observed in immature animals, may contribute to the enhanced sensitivity of young animals to seizures and epilepsy. PIP deserves more experimental attention because understanding its mechanisms could provide valuable insights into treating these conditions.MethodsUsing the technique of cortical afterdischarges (ADs), we analyzed…

IntroductionAmbient glutamate is capable of regulating neural excitability and contributes to several brain pathologies. It is well established by experiments on rodent tissue that extrasynaptic glutamate –mainly regulated by astrocytic glutamate uptake- can elicit both phasic slow inward currents (SICs) and tonic inward currents. These currents are thought to be mediated by overlapping mechanism…

Synapses are the basic unit of information transfer between neurons. Their dysfunction is a common trigger of cognitive diseases and disorders. However, high-throughput analysis methods to assess synaptic function and dysfunction are lacking. Calcium imaging in cultured neurons in the absence of Mg2+ and presence of TTX allows visualization of NMDAR-dependent spontaneous synaptic calcium transien…

Motor neuron disease (MND) is marked by progressive neurodegeneration in which presynaptic Ca2+-handling and mitochondrial metabolism are thought to be vulnerable, but direct functional studies in human brain are scarce because most material is frozen long-term. Here, we show that synaptosomes isolated from paired fresh and experimentally frozen mouse cortex, and from cryopreserved human motor co…

IntroductionThe amygdala is involved in processing and memory of emotional stimuli. The cortical regions of the amygdala are situated medially to the piriform cortex (PC) and are also considered part of the olfactory system, which may explain why scents can evoke strong emotional responses and trigger vivid memories. Similarly to the PC, the anterior cortical nucleus of the amygdala (ACo) is a th…

Late preterm birth, occurred between 34 and 36 weeks of gestation, constitutes a risk factor for neurodevelopment. Despite being initially considered as a near term group of newborns, late preterm infants have shown dysfunctions in cerebral connectivity and in learning at school age. This mini-review will summarize key findings of latest studies about altered brain connectivity and cognition in t…

Experience reshapes cortical circuits, yet plasticity is tightly gated—high during early critical periods and increasingly constrained with maturation. Later in life, aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) create a growing demand to restrain network hyperactivity. Across these contexts, excitatory drive onto parvalbumin-positive fast-spiking interneurons (PVs)—shaped by synaptic organizers such as NP…

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is increasingly understood as a metabo-psychiatric disorder in which metabolic biology and neural circuit function are intrinsically intertwined. Genetic studies reveal that AN is associated with heritable metabolic traits suggesting that metabolic vulnerability contributes to the disorder. The metabolic profile of AN further shapes brain responses; endocrine signals such as…