astrocytes optimize the synaptic transmission of information星形胶质细胞优化突触传递的信息.pdfVIP

Astrocytes Optimize the Synaptic Transmission of Information 1 2 1 Suhita Nadkarni , Peter Jung *, Herbert Levine 1 Center of Theoretical Biological Physics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America, 2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, United States of America Abstract Chemical synapses transmit information via the release of neurotransmitter-filled vesicles from the presynaptic terminal. Using computational modeling, we predict that the limited availability of neurotransmitter resources in combination with the spontaneous release of vesicles limits the maximum degree of enhancement of synaptic transmission. This gives rise to an optimal tuning that depends on the number of active zones. There is strong experimental evidence that astrocytes that enwrap synapses can modulate the probabilities of vesicle release through bidirectional signaling and hence regulate synaptic transmission. For low-fidelity hippocampal synapses, which typically have only one or two active zones, the predicted optimal values lie close to those determined by experimentally measured astrocytic feedback, suggesting that astrocytes optimize synaptic transmission of information. Citation: Nadkarni S, Jung P, Levine H (2008) Astrocytes Optimize the Synaptic Transmission of Information. PLoS Comput Biol 4(5): e1000088. doi:10.1371/ journal.pcbi.1000088 ´ ´ ´ Editor: Lyle J. Graham, UFR Biomedicale de l’Universite Rene Descartes, France Received August 22, 2007; Accepted April 24, 2008; Published May 30, 2008 Copyright: 2008 Nadkarni et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Lice