Ups and downs of cerebellar plasticity

Phosphatase Activity Controls the Ups and Downs of Cerebellar Learning

Investigations of the cellular substrate for cerebellar learning have focused largely on a single form of plasticity, kinase-dependent long-term depression (LTD). In this issue of Neuron, Schonewille et al. provide evidence that calcineurin, a protein phosphatase required for long-term potentiation (LTP) and other cellular processes, may be just as important.

Bistability in Purkinje neurons: Ups and downs in cerebellar research

The output of cerebellar Purkinje cells has been characterized extensively and theories regarding the role of simple spike (SS) and complex spike (CS) patterns have evolved through many different studies. A bistable pattern of SS output can be observed in vitro; however, differing views exist regarding the occurrence of bistable SS output in vivo. Bistability in Purkinje cell output is characte...

The Ups and Downs of Translation-Dependent Plasticity

Neuroscientists have been looking for good examples linking neuronal activity to gene expression/regulation involved in synaptic plasticity and the formation of long-term memories. New findings from Park et al. and Waung et al. in this issue of Neuron show that fast dendritic translation of the immediate-early gene Arc/Arg3.1 is involved in hippocampal mGluR-LTD, a protein synthesis-dependent f...

Mdm2: the ups and downs.

Mdm2 was first described 12 years ago. Interest in this oncogene has risen since its identification as a protein that binds and efficiently inactivates the p53 tumor suppressor protein. This interest was further boosted by the discovery that the mdm2 gene is actually a target for direct transcriptional activation by p53, thus defining an autoregulatory feedback loop for the intracellular modula...

TRANSSENTENTIAL MEDITATIONS Ups and downs in dynamic semantics TRANSSENTENTIAL MEDITATIONS Ups and downs in dynamic semantics