Summary of the synaptic biology lessons covered in the “From moleule to mind” course, summary includes pictures extracted from the powerpoint slides with annotations to them (in addition to the class notes)
Learning objective SynBio1: Chemical synapses
• Four different types of synapses and their predicted reliability
• Synaptic probability, synaptic failures
• Short lived and long lived changes in synaptic probability
Differences in "release probability" play an important role in the ability of the brain to process
information and to store/retrieve it ...and are explained by morphological and functional
differences between synapses and their ability to adjust
• In B and C we have a more reliable synapse -> one receiving cell with multiple release
sites, if one of those fails, we can still get a synapse
○ Likeliness of vesicle being released is higher
• We need all of them -> A and D are very specific synapses (not so reliable but very
selective)
• MOST of the synapses of CNS have 1or 2 release sites max (we can see them as a darker
line)
○ The length of the synapses is proportional to the number of vesicles docked
○ Not very reliable in transmitting a lot of signal (because we have not enough
vesicles), but very specific
○ See calyx of held
Conditioning:
• We create new connections between ingoing and outgoing information -> formation of
new synapses
• Since the synapses in the CNS have 1 release site we need to make these connections
using existing synapses
Coincidence detection
detection:: When two things happen at the same time all the time
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• Release probability: very few synapses are reliable (look at the graph, the release
probability in 0.8 or 1 has a very very small number of boutons)
○ We can change this with stimulation
• Remember we can shift the pattern of the action potential vesicle release
• Note that muscular junctions have a lot of release sites (they hardly
ever fail)
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