Topic: short-term facilitation

One of the most fundamental tenets in neuroscience is that information is stored in the strength of synapses, and that learning relies on changes in synaptic strength. Here we aim to extend this tenet into the temporal domain by proposing that synapses not only learn to strengthen or weaken, but can learn when to be weak or strong on the subsecond scale. It has been known for more than half a century that synapses exhibit short-term synaptic plasticity (STP): a form of presynaptic, use-dependent, plasticity in which consecutive spikes can elicit progressively depressing (short-term depression/

Cav2.1 channels are critically important for fast synaptic transmission at central synapses. The two Cav2.1 isoforms Cav2.1[EFa] and Cav2.1[EFb] are generated by alternative splicing of two mutually exclusive exons, 37a and 37b. Both isoforms are expressed throughout the adult brain, whereas Cav2.1[EFb] predominates at early stages of development. Cav2.1[EFa] supports synchronous release and short-term synaptic depression, whereas Cav2.1[EFb] boosts asynchronous release and short-term facilitation. We investigated whether the two isoforms were distinctly located at excitatory nerve terminals r