How Can Synaptic Axon Terminals Adapt to Altered Metabolic Demand?

[neuronline_admin]

Material below summarizes the article, Mitochondrial Ultrastructure Is Coupled to Synaptic Performance at Axonal Release Sites, published on January 15, 2018, in eNeuro, authored by Csaba Cserép, Balázs Pósfai, Anett Dóra Schwarcz and Ádám Dénes.

Synaptic transmission — the process through which brain cells communicate with each other — consumes a huge amount of energy, the vast majority of which is provided by neuronal mitochondria.

As information is being processed and stored in the brain, long-term changes occur in synaptic strength, altering both the structure and activity of these connections. This means the amount of energy needed at a given location in neural networks is also changing in space and time, making some kind of adaptation mechanism necessary.

Our eNeuro paper describes the structural basis of this — so far unrecognised — adaptation mechanism likely to be responsible for local demand matching.

Link back to full article

[Kimberly Raab-Graham]

Mitochondria dysfunction is involved in so many neurodegenerative diseases. Exciting work!