1. Putting the Freeze on the Presynaptic Terminal
La Siksou, Philippe Rostaing, Jean-Pierre Lechaire, Thomas Boudier, Toshihisa Ohtsuka, Anna Fejtov, Hung-Teh Kao, Paul Greengard, Eckart D. Gundelfinger, Antoine Triller, and Serge Marty
This week, Siksou et al. give us some close-up views of the cytomatrix in presynaptic terminals. To catch synaptic vesicles and particularly their filamentous network in the act, the authors immobilized rodent CA1 hippocampal slices by high-pressure freezing. Cryosubstitution and embedding preserved the architecture of the protein network. Electron tomography images were then reconstructed for a three-dimensional view. Within presynaptic boutons, filaments connected synaptic vesicles (SVs) to one another, and longer filaments (3060 nm) linked the network to active zones in the presynaptic plasma membrane. On average, each SV was connected to 1.5 other SVs. Synapsins have been considered to be the filaments that maintain SV in position at the active zone. However, in mice lacking three synapsins, SV position was unchanged, and filaments linking them together were still present despite a significant drop in SV number. Thus, the cytomatrix appears not to depend on the integrity of synapsins.
2. Early Glucocorticoids and Later Neuroprotection
Paola Casolini, Maria Rosaria Domenici, Carlo Cinque, Giovanni Sebastiano Alem, Valentina Chiodi, Mariangela Galluzzo, Marco Musumeci, Jerome Mairesse, Anna Rita Zuena, atrizia Matteucci, Giuseppe Marano, tefania Maccari, Ferdinando Nicoletti, and Assia Catalani
This week, Casolini et al. show that maternal behavior during a pups neonatal life makes a long-lasting imprint on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Rat dams received water supplemented with corticosterone (CORT), a hormonal treatment intended to mimic mild stress. The dams displayed increased maternal care behaviors with their nursing pups during the first 3 weeks of life. Rema
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Contact: Sara Harris
sharris@sfn.org
202-962-4000
Society for Neuroscience
26-Jun-2007