Entry Date:
January 25, 2016

Experience Dependent Stabilization of Synapses in Vivo

Principal Investigator Elly Nedivi


We find that in the cpg15 knockout mouse (cpg15 KO) there is abnormal postnatal development of excitatory connectivity in the hippocampus (Fujino et al., Genes & Dev. 2011), as well as visual cortex (Picard et al., J. Neurosci. 2014). In the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus as many as 30% of spines initially lack synapses. Chronic in vivo imaging of cortical pyramidal neurons through a cranial window shows that while dendritic spine dynamics in cpg15 KO mice are comparable to controls, fewer of the dynamic events in these mice are stabilized, and thus favor persistent spine loss (Fujino et al., Genes & Dev. 2011). These results suggest that the in vivo developmental deficits in the cpg15 KO mouse derive from lack of a synaptic stabilization signal. My project makes use of new in vivo synaptic labeling methods and multi-color two-photon microscopy to examine how CPG15 regulates synapse stabilization in vivo and explores whether CPG15 could link experience driven neuronal activity and new synapse stabilization.