1 1 Central dysmyelination reduces the temporal fidelity of synaptic transmission and 2 the reliability of postsynaptic firing during high-frequency stimulation. 3 4 Sei Eun Kim, Karl Turkington, Christopher Kushmerick and Jun Hee Kim 5 6 The Department of Physiology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San 7 Antonio, Texas 78229, USA 8 Departamento de Fisiologia e Biofisica, Universidad...

Synchronized neuronal activity (seizures) can appear in the presence or absence of synaptic transmission. Mechanisms of seizure initiation in each of these conditions have been studied, but relatively few studies have addressed seizure termination. In particular, how are seizures terminated in the absence of synaptic activity where there is no loss of excitatory drive or augmentation of inhibit...

Most types of epileptiform activity with synaptic transmission have been shown to propagate from the CA3 to CA1 region in hippocampus. However, nonsynaptic epileptiform activity induced in vitro is known to propagate slowly from the caudal end of CA1 toward CA2/CA3. Understanding the propagation modes of epileptiform activity, and their causality is important to revealing the underlying mechani...

Fast exchange of extracellular signals between neurons and astrocytes is crucial for synaptic function. Over the last few decades, different pathways of astroglial release of neuroactive substances have been proposed to modulate neurotransmission. However, their involvement in physiological conditions is highly debated. Connexins, the gap junction forming proteins, are highly expressed in astro...

Ligand-binding studies have suggested many functions for the synaptic vesicle protein, synaptotagmin. But genetic elimination of the protein supports only one role: translating arriving Ca2+ signals into vesicle release.

Dysfunction of the proteins regulating synaptic function can cause synaptic plasticity imbalance that underlies neurological disorders such as intellectual disability. A study found that four distinct mutations within BRAG1, an Arf-GEF synaptic protein, each led to X-chromosome-linked intellectual disability (XLID). Although the physiological functions of BRAG1 are poorly understood, each of th...