{"id":1873,"date":"2006-06-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vermont.salk.edu\/news-release\/connections-between-neurons-act-as-information-filters-in-the-brain\/"},"modified":"2006-06-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-13T07:00:00","slug":"connections-between-neurons-act-as-information-filters-in-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"disclosure","link":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/connections-between-neurons-act-as-information-filters-in-the-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Connections between  neurons act as information filters in the brain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>La Jolla, CA  \u2013 For the first time, researchers at the Salk Institute for  Biological Studies have demonstrated that cell-cell contacts in the brain play  an active role in processing information: called synapses, these interfaces act  as precise filters that sense and amplify meaningful information, Salk  researchers report in the current issue of <em>PLoS  Biology<\/em>, available online.<\/p>\n<p>Neurons are often considered to be the primary computational  units of the brain. But it was unclear whether the connections between neurons  actively participated in the computational process, or merely acted to convey  information. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our study shows that synapses not only ensure the flow of  information but actively modify their properties to help with computations,&#8221;  says Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Charles Stevens, a professor in the  Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory and senior author of the study. <\/p>\n<p>Lead author Vitaly Klyachko, a post-doctoral researcher  working with Stevens explains, &#8220;Brain cells produce a lot of background  chatter. Synapses filter this random noise and enhance relevant information.  They work as very fine-tuned filters that do exactly what you would want them  to do.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Brain cells signal by sending electrical impulses along  axons, long, hair-like extensions that reach out to neighboring nerve cells.  They make contact via synapses, from the Greek word meaning &#8220;to clasp  together.&#8221; When an electrical signal reaches the end of an axon, the voltage  change triggers release of neurotransmitters, the brain&#8217;s chemical messengers.  These neurotransmitter molecules then travel across the space between neurons  at a synapse and trigger an electrical signal in the adjacent cell.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists had postulated that synapses play a major role in  information processing in the brain. But not all signals are transmitted. Just  like cell phone calls are dropped in areas of spotty coverage, synapses drop up  to 90 percent of all incoming signals. &#8220;The unreliability of neuronal connections  that presumably convey and process information throughout the brain was  difficult to reconcile with the fact that brain as a whole is very reliable,&#8221;  says Klyachko. <\/p>\n<p>Trying to get to the bottom of this enigma, the Salk  researchers relied on naturally occurring activity patterns that were recorded  in living animals from a part of the brain known as the hippocampus \u2013 a  structure critical for memory formation and learning. They used these recorded  patterns to stimulate isolated groups of neurons and measured which signals  synapses transmitted to neighboring cells and which ones they dropped. <\/p>\n<p>In the past, similar studies were commonly performed at room  temperature. Since scientists had found that results were often too complex to  interpret, the Salk researchers recorded data in warmer conditions, slightly  below body temperature. &#8220;Intuitively, I recorded at physiological temperatures  instead of room temperature and that turned out to be the key,&#8221; remembers  Klyachko. &#8220;I found that synaptic transmission is highly temperature-dependent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>From there it was only a small step to the discovery that  the two major types of synapses, excitatory and inhibitory ones, that were  previously thought to always work against each other, act in concert to  identify patterns carrying relevant information in an incoming signal. Stevens  explained: &#8220;Synapses recognize bursts of neuronal activity and turn up their  strength, acting like a switch.&#8221; As a result, meaningful patterns are  amplified, while stray noise disappears into some sort of &#8220;synaptic abyss.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Until now, experimental evidence for a filtering function of  synapses has been elusive. &#8220;Our work is the confirmation that everybody has  been waiting for,&#8221; explains Klyachko. &#8220;It is the precisely-tuned filtering  properties of the two major types of synapses and their collaboration that  makes the information processing reliable.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La  Jolla, California is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to  fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, the improvement of human health,  and the training of future generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, M.D., whose  polio vaccine all but eradicated the crippling disease poliomyelitis in 1955,  opened the Institute in 1965 with a gift of land from the City of San Diego and  the financial support of the March of Dimes.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","faculty":[],"disease-research":[],"class_list":["post-1873","disclosure","type-disclosure","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Connections between neurons act as information filters in the brain - Salk Institute for Biological Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/connections-between-neurons-act-as-information-filters-in-the-brain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"zh_CN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Connections between neurons act as information filters in the brain - 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