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Synaptic Transmission

Title: Synaptic Transmission
Supervisors: Assoc. Professor Alan Everett

The laboratory is concerned with understanding the mechanisms that determine the strength of a synaptic connection. Experiments are conducted on the neuromuscular junction, and on synapses between hippocampal neurones in culture.

Synaptic function is evaluated from both the electrical signs of transmission as well as from novel optical measurements of nerve terminal activity using fluorescent dyes.

Our hypotheses are derived with the view to understanding what determines the probability of release of transmitter. Some neurones nearly always release transmitter when stimulated and therefore have a high probability of secretion; those with low release probability secrete relatively infrequently. Some or our recent research has focused on synaptic plasticity and the behaviour of vesicles in nerve terminals and our main findings from this work can be summarized thus:

  1. “Silent” boutons in ippocampal neuronal cultures can be induced to recycle vesicles by activation of protein kinase A.
  2. Factors other than simply the number of vesicles available at an active zone in a nerve terminal are important in determining the probability of transmitter release, and
  3. The release ready subpool of vesicles at active zones can recycle independently of other vesicles in the terminals at low frequencies of nerve stimulation.

Ongoing questions/project areas of concern by the laboratory include the following:

  • What are the roles of calcium and calcium activated second messengers in nerve terminals in the mobilisation of vesicles for exocytosis?
  • What role does the cytoskeleton play in regulating vesicle exocytosis?
  • What determines the size and distribution of the sub-pools of vesicles at release sites (active zones)?

  • What changes occur at synapses when transmission is potentiated or depressed?

This focus should lead to a better understanding of the way signalling is managed in the nervous system and help answer one of the oldest questions in neuroscience: How does the nervous system store information?
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