Rapid structural alterations of the active zone lead to sustained changes in neurotransmitter release
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The likelihood with which an action potential elicits neurotransmitter release, the release probability (p(r)), is an important component of synaptic strength. Regulatory mechanisms controlling several steps of synaptic vesicle (SV) exocytosis may affect p(r), yet their relative importance in determining p(r) and eliciting temporal changes in neurotransmitter release at individual synapses is largely unknown. We have investigated whether the size of the active zone cytomatrix is a major determinant of p(r) and whether changes in its size lead to corresponding alterations in neurotransmitter release. We have used a fluorescent sensor of SV exocytosis, synaptophysin-pHluorin, to measure p(r) at individual synapses with high accuracy and employed a fluorescently labeled cytomatrix protein, Bassoon, to quantify the amount of active zone cytomatrix present at these synapses. We find that, for synapses made by a visually identified presynaptic neuron, p(r) is indeed strongly correlated with the amount of active zone cytomatrix present at the presynaptic specialization. Intriguingly, active zone cytomatrices are frequently subject to synapse-specific changes in size on a time scale of minutes. These spontaneous alterations in active zone size are associated with corresponding changes in neurotransmitter release. Our results suggest that the size of the active zone cytomatrix has a large influence on the reliability of synaptic transmission. Furthermore, they implicate mechanisms leading to rapid structural alterations at active zones in synapse-specific forms of plasticity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".