Long-lasting plasticity of hippocampal adult-born neurons.
Journal of Neuroscience. 2012-02-29; 32(9): 3101-3108
DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.4731-11.2012
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1. J Neurosci. 2012 Feb 29;32(9):3101-8. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4731-11.2012.
Long-lasting plasticity of hippocampal adult-born neurons.
Lemaire V(1), Tronel S, Montaron MF, Fabre A, Dugast E, Abrous DN.
Author information:
(1)Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale and Université
Bordeaux, Neurocentre Magendie, Physiopathologie de la Plasticité Neuronale,
Unité 862, F-33000 Bordeaux, France.
Adult neurogenesis occurs in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, which is a key
structure in learning and memory. It is believed that adult-born neurons exert
their unique role in information processing due to their high plasticity during
immature stage that renders them malleable in response to environmental demands.
Here, we demonstrate that, in rats, there is no critical time window for
experience-induced dendritic plasticity of adult-born neurons as spatial learning
in the water maze sculpts the dendritic arbor of adult-born neurons even when
they are several months of age. By ablating neurogenesis within a specific period
of time, we found that learning was disrupted when the delay between ablation and
learning was extended to several months. Together, these results show that mature
adult-born neurons are still plastic when they are functionally integrated into
dentate network. Our results suggest a new perspective with regard to the role of
neo-neurons by highlighting that even mature ones can provide an additional
source of plasticity to the brain to process memory information.
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4731-11.2012
PMID: 22378883 [Indexed for MEDLINE]