Department of Neuroscience, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Charleston, SC, USA.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2023 Jan;48(1):21-36. doi: 10.1038/s41386-022-01338-w. Epub 2022 May 16.
Over the last 15 years, the field of neuroscience has evolved toward recognizing the critical role of astroglia in shaping neuronal synaptic activity and along with the pre- and postsynapse is now considered an equal partner in tripartite synaptic transmission and plasticity. The relative youth of this recognition and a corresponding deficit in reagents and technologies for quantifying and manipulating astroglia relative to neurons continues to hamper advances in understanding tripartite synaptic physiology. Nonetheless, substantial advances have been made and are reviewed herein. We review the role of astroglia in synaptic function and regulation of behavior with an eye on how tripartite synapses figure into brain pathologies underlying behavioral impairments in psychiatric disorders, both from the perspective of measures in postmortem human brains and more subtle influences on tripartite synaptic regulation of behavior in animal models of psychiatric symptoms. Our goal is to provide the reader a well-referenced state-of-the-art understanding of current knowledge and predict what we may discover with deeper investigation of tripartite synapses using reagents and technologies not yet available.
在过去的 15 年中，神经科学领域的研究已经发展到认识到星形胶质细胞在塑造神经元突触活动中的关键作用。现在，星形胶质细胞与突触前和突触后一起被认为是三突触传递和可塑性的平等伙伴。这种认识相对较新，并且相对于神经元来说，用于量化和操作星形胶质细胞的试剂和技术也存在相应的不足，这仍然阻碍了对三突触生理学的理解的进展。尽管如此，还是取得了实质性的进展，并在此进行了回顾。我们回顾了星形胶质细胞在突触功能和行为调节中的作用，着眼于三突触在精神障碍行为障碍下的脑病理学中的作用，从尸检人脑的角度以及对行为的三突触调节的更微妙影响来探讨动物模型中的精神症状。我们的目标是为读者提供一个参考广泛的最新知识理解，并预测在使用尚未获得的试剂和技术对三突触进行更深入研究的情况下，我们可能会发现什么。
