Synaptic Plasticity: New Research

Description

Synaptic plasticity is the ability of the connection, or synapse, between two neurons to change in strength. There are several underlying mechanisms that co-operate to achieve synaptic plasticity, including changes in the quantity of neurotransmitter released into a synapse and changes in how effectively cells respond to those neurotransmitters. Since memories are postulated to be represented by vastly interconnected networks of synapses in the brain, synaptic plasticity is one of the important neurochemical foundations of learning and memory. In this book the discussion of synaptic plasticity that effects both physical and mental behaviour of organisms is discussed including as the physical performance of an organism that resulted in a stroke, drug addiction, or the mechanisms of brain plasticity that forms mental disorders such as depression.

Contents

Preface; Synaptic Plasticity: Physiology and Neurological Disease; Molecular Mechanisms of Learning and Memory Based on Research on Ca 2 +/Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase II; Synaptic Plasticity: Emerging Role for Endocannabinoid System; The Presence of Perforated Synapses in the Striatum after Dopamine Depletion. Is this a sign of Negative Brain Plasticity?; Synaptic Plasticity and Motor Learning in the Cerebellum; Seizure-Induced Synaptic Plasticity: Understanding Synaptic Reorganisation; Synaptic Plasticity in Cocaine Addiction; Synaptic Plasticity in the Medical Prefrontal Cortex; Cellular Cognition: A Focus on LTP and LTD in the Lateral Nucleus of the Amygdala; Synaptic Plasticity and Mnemonic Encoding by Hippocampal Formation Place Cells; Regulation of Synaptic Plasticity by the Scaffolding Protein Spinophilin; Dopamine-Dependent Synaptic Plasticity in the Cortico-Basal Ganglia-Thalamocortical Loops as Mechanism of Visual Attention; Index.