Plasticity is a fundamental property of neuronal circuits, allowing them to adapt alterations in activation. Generally speaking, plasticity has been viewed from ‘neuron-centric’ perspective, with changes circuit function attributed excitability, synaptic strength or connectivity. However, it now clear that glial cells, particular astrocytes, are key regulators plasticity. This article reviews r...

The ability of a genotype to show diverse phenotypes in different environments is called phenotypic plasticity. Phenotypic plasticity helps populations to evade extinctions in novel environments, facilitates adaptation and fuels evolution. However, most studies focus on understanding the genetic basis of phenotypic regulation in specific environments. As a result, while it's evolutionary releva...

Classical Hebbian learning puts the emphasis on joint pre- and postsynaptic activity, but neglects the potential role of neuromodulators. Since neuromodulators convey information about novelty or reward, the influence of neuromodulators on synaptic plasticity is useful not just for action learning in classical conditioning, but also to decide "when" to create new memories in response to a flow ...

Adult neurogenesis is highly responsive to environmental and physiological factors. The majority of studies to date have examined short-term consequences of enhancing or blocking neurogenesis but long-term changes remain less well understood. Current evidence for age-related declines in neurogenesis warrant further investigation into these long-term changes. In this report we address the hypoth...

Abstract   In this paper elastoplastic buckling of rectangular plates with different boundary conditions are investigated. Differential governing equations of plate are obtained on the basis of general loading and according to deformation theory (DT) of plasticity. Various loading conditions contain uniaxial, biaxial and shear are studied. The employed material is AL7075T6 which is usually used...

Early temporary windows of heightened brain plasticity called critical periods developmentally sculpt neural circuits and contribute to adult behavior. Regulatory mechanisms of visual cortex development - the preeminent model of experience-dependent critical period plasticity-actively limit adult plasticity and have proved fruitful therapeutic targets to reopen plasticity and rewire faulty visu...

Bavis RW, Mitchell GS. Long-term effects of the perinatal environment on respiratory control. J Appl Physiol 104: 1220–1229, 2008. First published January 10, 2008; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01086.2007.—The respiratory control system exhibits considerable plasticity, similar to other regions of the nervous system. Plasticity is a persistent change in system behavior triggered by experiences such...

Costs and limits are assumed to be the major constraints on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. However, despite their expected importance, they have been surprisingly hard to find in natural populations. It has therefore been argued that natural selection might have removed high-cost genotypes in all populations. However, if costs of plasticity are linked to the degree of plasticity expres...

Phenotypic plasticity is often an adaptation of organisms to cope with temporally or spatially heterogenous landscapes. Like other adaptations, one would predict that different species, populations, or sexes might thus show some degree of parallel evolution of plasticity, in the form of parallel reaction norms, when exposed to analogous environmental gradients. Indeed, one might even expect par...

BACKGROUND Synaptic plasticity underlies many aspect of learning memory and development. The properties of synaptic plasticity can change as a function of previous plasticity and previous activation of synapses, a phenomenon called metaplasticity. Synaptic plasticity not only changes the functional connectivity between neurons but in some cases produces a structural change in synaptic spines; a...