At the end of my first year as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA), it is appropriate to reflect on where we are headed in long-term care. As I have pointed out previously, I strongly believe that the future development of a field is dependent on its history, for it is history that creates the values of a field. As recently chronicled in the ...

The term synaptic plasticity points to a series of persistent changes related to the activity of synapses. Long-term potentiation (LTP) is a reflection of synaptic plasticity that has an important role in learning and memory. LTP is a long-lasting increase of synaptic activity due to enhancement of excitatory synaptic transmission after a high-frequency train of electrical stimulations. Differe...

Since the discovery of long-term potentiation (LTP) in 1973, thousands of papers have been published on this intriguing phenomenon, which provides a compelling cellular model for learning and memory. Although LTP has suffered considerable growing pains over the years, LTP has finally come of age. Here the rich history of LTP is reviewed. These are exciting times and the pace of discovery is rem...