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Synaptic Cooperation and Competition: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

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Synaptic Tagging and Capture

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Abstract

Memories are not recollections of our past but rather predictions of the future. As such, memories are evolving constructs prone to modifications. For example, when you eat a candy bar, you expect it to be good based on previous experience. When it is bad, the brain is faced with a conflict and the necessity of revision. Different outcomes are possible: a new association of candy bar-bad can be formed; the previous association can be updated to candy bars are sometimes good and sometimes bad; or simply the horrible encounter with a bad candy bar is forgotten. This example illustrates that every new episode is integrated with previous information and does not stand alone, implying that all events are, to some degree, interacting with previously acquired memories. The rules that determine whether memories are associated, by cooperation, or selected and lost, by competition, are completely unknown. Neuronal circuits are intrinsically plastic, and the plasticity of neuronal synapses underlies the storage of information as memories. At the cellular level, the synaptic tagging and capture (STC) theory states that the maintenance of activity-dependent synaptic changes is based on the interaction between synaptic-specific tags and the capture of plasticity-related proteins. The STC has provided a solid framework to account for the input specificity of synaptic plasticity but also provides a working model to understand the heterosynaptic interaction between different groups of synapses, such as synaptic cooperation and competition. In this chapter, I will discuss the evidence regarding the cooperative and competitive interactions between different groups of synapses. In particular, I will address the properties of synaptic cooperation and competition that contribute to the refinement of neuronal connections during development. Later, I will address the evidence that similar rules operate during the induction and maintenance of synaptic plasticity and how these rules influence the acquisition and maintenance of long-term memories. Further understanding of the cellular rules underlying cooperative and competitive interactions between synapses will allow us to dissect the rules underlying associative learning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cellular and Systems Neurobiology, NOVA Medical School, Lisbon, Portugal

    Rosalina Fonseca

  2. Plasticity and Learning, i3S - Instituto Investigação e Inovação em Saude, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Rosalina Fonseca

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  1. Rosalina Fonseca
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Correspondence to Rosalina Fonseca .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Physiology and Health Longevity, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore

    Sreedharan Sajikumar

  2. Iowa Neuroscience Institute, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Ted Abel

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Fonseca, R. (2024). Synaptic Cooperation and Competition: Two Sides of the Same Coin?. In: Sajikumar, S., Abel, T. (eds) Synaptic Tagging and Capture. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54864-2_8

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