Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Structure and function of a neocortical synapse

Simone Holler-Rickauer, German Köstinger, Kevan A.C. Martin, View ORCID ProfileGregor F.P. Schuhknecht, Ken J. Stratford
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.13.875971
Simone Holler-Rickauer
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
German Köstinger
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Kevan A.C. Martin
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Gregor F.P. Schuhknecht
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Gregor F.P. Schuhknecht
  • For correspondence: gschuhknecht@googlemail.com
Ken J. Stratford
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Thirty-four years since the small nervous system of the nematode C. elegans was manually reconstructed in the electron microscope (EM)1, ‘high-throughput’ EM techniques now enable the dense reconstruction of neural circuits within increasingly large brain volumes at synaptic resolution2–6. As with C. elegans, however, a key limitation for inferring brain function from neuronal wiring diagrams is that it remains unknown how the structure of a synapse seen in EM relates to its physiological transmission strength. Here, we related structure and function of the same synapses to bridge this gap: we combined paired whole-cell recordings of synaptically connected pyramidal neurons in slices of mouse somatosensory cortex with correlated light microscopy and high-resolution EM of all putative synaptic contacts between the neurons. We discovered a linear relationship between synapse size (postsynaptic density area) and synapse strength (excitatory postsynaptic potential amplitude), which provides an experimental foundation for assigning the actual physiological weights to synaptic connections seen in the EM. Furthermore, quantal analysis revealed that the number of vesicle release sites exceeded the number of anatomical synapses formed by a connection by a factor of at least 2.6, which challenges the current understanding of synaptic release in neocortex and suggests that neocortical synapses operate with multivesicular release, like hippocampal synapses7–11. Thus, neocortical synapses are more complex computational devices and may modulate their strength more flexibly than previously thought, with the corollary that the canonical neocortical microcircuitry possesses significantly higher computational power than estimated by current models.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted December 13, 2019.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Structure and function of a neocortical synapse
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Structure and function of a neocortical synapse
Simone Holler-Rickauer, German Köstinger, Kevan A.C. Martin, Gregor F.P. Schuhknecht, Ken J. Stratford
bioRxiv 2019.12.13.875971; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.13.875971
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Structure and function of a neocortical synapse
Simone Holler-Rickauer, German Köstinger, Kevan A.C. Martin, Gregor F.P. Schuhknecht, Ken J. Stratford
bioRxiv 2019.12.13.875971; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.13.875971

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3482)
  • Biochemistry (7329)
  • Bioengineering (5301)
  • Bioinformatics (20212)
  • Biophysics (9985)
  • Cancer Biology (7706)
  • Cell Biology (11273)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6425)
  • Ecology (9923)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13292)
  • Genetics (9353)
  • Genomics (12559)
  • Immunology (7681)
  • Microbiology (18964)
  • Molecular Biology (7421)
  • Neuroscience (40915)
  • Paleontology (298)
  • Pathology (1226)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2130)
  • Physiology (3145)
  • Plant Biology (6842)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1271)
  • Synthetic Biology (1893)
  • Systems Biology (5299)
  • Zoology (1086)