Changes in the dendritic branching of adult mammalian neurones revealed by repeated imaging in situ
Changes in the dendritic branching of adult mammalian neurones revealed by repeated imaging in situ
复制标题
通过重复原位成像揭示成年哺乳动物神经元树突分支的变化
作者：
D. Purves;R. Hadley
理解脊椎动物神经系统长期变化机制的一个主要障碍是无法在动物一生中的不同时间观察同一神经细胞。因此，神经连接的变化是哺乳动物神经系统非凡灵活性的基础，这一可能性还没有通过直接观察得到验证。在这里，我们报告的研究中，我们已经可视化相同的神经元在上级颈神经节的年轻成年小鼠在长达33天的时间间隔。这种神经细胞的集合特别容易接近，因此非常适合我们的方法。我们发现，树突状分支的神经元检查变化明显的时间间隔，2周或更长时间;一些分支回缩，其他延长和其他人似乎从头形成。这些突触后元件的明显重塑意味着这些细胞的突触连接在通常被认为是发育期之后通常会经历显著的重排。
A major obstacle to understanding the mechanism of long-term change in the vertebrate nervous system has been the inability to observe the same nerve cell at different times during the life of an animal. The possibility that changes in neural connectivity underlie the remarkable flexibility of the nervous systems of mammals has therefore not been tested by direct observation. Here, we report studies in which we have visualized the same neurone in the superior cervical ganglion of young adult mice at intervals of up to 33 days. This collection of nerve cells is particularly accessible and therefore well suited to our approach. We find that the dendritic branches of the neurones examined change appreciably over intervals, of 2 weeks or more; some branches retract, others elongate and others seem to form de novo. The apparent remodelling of these postsynaptic elements implies that the synaptic connections of these cells normally undergo significant rearrangement beyond what is usually considered to be the developmental period.