Review Article

AMPA Receptor Trafficking in Homeostatic Synaptic Plasticity: Functional Molecules and Signaling Cascades

Figure 1

Global and local homeostatic synaptic plasticity. Under basal condition, neurons have a relative stable level of activity as a result of basal synaptic inputs mediated by AMPARs (red clusters) at the postsynaptic domains (a). When the activity of a neuron or a network is chronically suppressed such as by TTX incubation, the strength of all synapses is elevated proportionally via an increase in AMPAR abundance (b). In contrast, an overall reduction in synaptic AMPAR accumulation is induced by lasting overactivation of neuronal activity (c). At individual synapses, long-term synaptic inactivity (terminal in blue) leads to a homeostatic increase in AMPAR amount, whereas lasting synaptic excitation causes selective AMPAR reduction at the stimulated synapse (terminal in red), without affecting the neighboring normal synapses (d).
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(a)
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(b)
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(c)
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(d)