瑞士苏黎世大学Gregor F. P. Schuhknecht团队揭示新皮质突触的结构和功能。这一研究成果于2021年1月13日在线发表在国际学术期刊《自然》上。
研究人员将小鼠体感皮层中突触连接的锥体神经元的切片电生理学与记录的神经元之间所有潜在突触接触的相关光学显微镜和高分辨率电子显微镜相结合。研究人员发现了突触大小和强度之间的线性关系，并从电子显微镜重建的突触中提供了缺失的连接。量子分析还显示突触平均包含至少2.7个神经递质释放位点。
这挑战了现有的释放模型，并提供了新皮质突触与多囊泡释放一起起作用的进一步证据，从而表明它们是比想象中更复杂的计算设备，因此这项工作扩展了经典皮层微回路的计算能力。
据悉，科学家在1986年用电子显微镜手工重建了线虫Caenorhabditis elegans的整个神经系统。自从这项具有里程碑意义的研究以来，高通量电子显微镜技术已经能够以突触分辨率重建更大的哺乳动物脑回路。然而，仍然不知道突触的结构如何与其生理传递强度有关，这是从神经元连接图谱推断脑功能的关键限制。
附：英文原文
Title: Structure and function of a neocortical synapse
Author: Simone Holler, German Kstinger, Kevan A. C. Martin, Gregor F. P. Schuhknecht, Ken J. Stratford
Issue&Volume: 2021-01-13
Abstract: In 1986, electron microscopy was used to reconstruct by hand the entire nervous system of a roundworm, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans1. Since this landmark study, high-throughput electron-microscopic techniques have enabled reconstructions of much larger mammalian brain circuits at synaptic resolution2,3. Nevertheless, it remains unknown how the structure of a synapse relates to its physiological transmission strength—a key limitation for inferring brain function from neuronal wiring diagrams. Here we combine slice electrophysiology of synaptically connected pyramidal neurons in the mouse somatosensory cortex with correlated light microscopy and high-resolution electron microscopy of all putative synaptic contacts between the recorded neurons. We find a linear relationship between synapse size and strength, providing the missing link in assigning physiological weights to synapses reconstructed from electron microscopy. Quantal analysis also reveals that synapses contain at least 2.7 neurotransmitter-release sites on average. This challenges existing release models and provides further evidence that neocortical synapses operate with multivesicular release4,5,6, suggesting that they are more complex computational devices than thought, and therefore expanding the computational power of the canonical cortical microcircuitry.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03134-2
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03134-2
Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html
本期文章：《自然》：Online/在线发表
