Introducing the brain: synapse plasticity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, March 27, 2023, 19:47 (605 days ago) @ David Turell

Three scientist awarded:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/2023-brain-prize-awarded-for-research-on-syn...

"The Brain Prize recognizes the three scientists’ research on the molecular mechanisms behind neural plasticity: the brain’s ability to rewire connections as it learns, develops, heals from injury, and adapts to new information.

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"Greenberg, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, identified the cFos gene and its associated protein, a transcription factor known as Fos. He went on to show that neuronal activity drives Fos expression, kickstarting the production of synaptic plasticity-related genes and leading to long-term changes in connectivity. Fos acts on extremely fast timescales, shifting the paradigm that gene regulation is a slow process.

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"Greenberg established that Fos and other genes mediate long-term synaptic plasticity, but scientists continued to puzzle over how synaptic plasticity is maintained at individual synapses far from the nucleus. This puzzle intrigued Schuman, who is now the director of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. In 1996, Schuman was the first to show that local protein translation at these far-away synapses is crucial for strengthening synaptic connectivity, a phenomenon that occurs without any genetic changes at the nucleus—where mRNAs are first transcribed. “The solution that neurons have come up with is to send mRNAs” from the nucleus to the axons, Schuman explains in a press briefing ahead of the announcement, “once the mRNAs are in the processes, proteins can be made on demand.”

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"Holt, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, is interested in how connections are first formed in the brain during development and maintained long-term. Her work on the vertebrate visual system led to the discovery that as neurons navigate to their targets during development, proteins are made and degraded at the very tip of the axon, called the growth cone. Like Schuman’s findings, Holt’s research highlighted the importance of local translation both in the development and maintenance of axons in the brain.

"Morris says that together, the researchers’ work tells “a lovely story.” First, Greenberg’s work shows that neuronal “activity can affect gene transcription.” Then, Schuman and Holt show that “gene transcription creates RNAs which are transported out to the periphery to do their job” of modifying synapses."

Comment: a design that fits the need. All of this is at a long distance from the nuclear DNA in neurons. NOT BY CHANCE.