Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2023 Jan;48(1):113-120. doi: 10.1038/s41386-022-01370-w. Epub 2022 Jul 9.
Activity-dependent synaptic plasticity is a ubiquitous property of the nervous system that allows neurons to communicate and change their connections as a function of past experiences. Through reweighting of synaptic strengths, the nervous system can remodel itself, giving rise to durable memories that create the biological basis for mental function. In healthy individuals, synaptic plasticity undergoes characteristic developmental and aging trajectories. Dysfunctional plasticity, in turn, underlies a wide spectrum of neuropsychiatric disorders including depression, schizophrenia, addiction, and posttraumatic stress disorder. From a mechanistic standpoint, synaptic plasticity spans the gamut of spatial and temporal scales, from microseconds to the lifespan, from microns to the entire nervous system. With the numbers and strengths of synapses changing on such wide scales, there is an important need to develop measurement techniques with complimentary sensitivities and a growing number of approaches are now being harnessed for this purpose. Through hemodynamic measures, structural and tracer imaging, and noninvasive neuromodulation, it is possible to image structural and functional changes that underlie synaptic plasticity and associated behavioral learning. Here we review the mechanisms of neural plasticity and the historical and future trends in techniques that allow imaging of synaptic changes that accompany psychiatric disorders, highlighting emerging therapeutics and the challenges and opportunities accompanying this burgeoning area of study.
活动依赖性突触可塑性是神经系统的普遍特性，它使神经元能够根据过去的经验进行交流和改变它们的连接。通过重新调整突触强度，神经系统可以重塑自身，产生持久的记忆，为心理功能创造生物学基础。在健康个体中，突触可塑性经历特征性的发育和衰老轨迹。反过来，功能失调的可塑性是包括抑郁症、精神分裂症、成瘾和创伤后应激障碍在内的广泛神经精神疾病的基础。从机制的角度来看，突触可塑性跨越了从微秒到寿命、从微米到整个神经系统的各种时空尺度。由于突触的数量和强度在如此广泛的范围内发生变化，因此非常需要开发具有互补灵敏度的测量技术，并且现在越来越多的方法正在被用于此目的。通过血液动力学测量、结构和示踪剂成像以及非侵入性神经调节，可以对基础突触可塑性和相关行为学习的结构和功能变化进行成像。在这里，我们回顾了神经可塑性的机制，以及允许成像伴随精神障碍的突触变化的历史和未来技术趋势，强调了新兴的治疗方法以及伴随这一新兴研究领域的挑战和机遇。
