Analysis of activity-dependent morphological plasticity of dendritic spines on hippocampal neurons
b'Dendritic spines are the main sites of synaptic input onto excitatory neurons. As recent experiments showed that synaptic activity and especially long-term potentiation (LTP) can modify spine morphology and number, I studied the effect of long-term depression (LTD) on these parameters. I used a local stimulation approach in combination with intracellular recordings and 2-photon-laser-microscopy to spatially restrict the area of induced synaptic activity. My experiments indicate that spine morphology was stable over time with only very little changes occurring following the induction of LTD. The number of large, prominent spine changes was very low. Only small, stubby spines disappeared significantly after local LTD induction.'