Potentiation of glutamate responses is a critical synaptic response to cocaine exposure in ventral tegmental area (VTA) neurons. However, the mechanism by which cocaine exposure promotes potentiation of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) and subsequently AMPA receptors (AMPARs) is not fully understood. In this study we demonstrate that repeated cocaine treatment causes loss of D2 dopamine receptor functio...

Mitochondria, as portable generators that power synaptic function, regulate the ATP supply and calcium homeostasis in the neuron. As molecular interactions within the synapses before and after the potentiation are beginning to be elucidated, the deciding moment during the tetanic stimulation that gives rise to the strengthening of the synapse remains a mystery. Here, I recorded electrically fro...

Long-lasting increase in synaptic strength is thought to underlie learning. An explosion of data has characterized changes in postsynaptic (pstS) AMPA receptor cycling during potentiation. However, changes occurring within the presynaptic (prS) terminal remain largely unknown. We show that appearance of new release sites during potentiation between cultured hippocampal neurons is due to (a) con...

The formation of spatial memories is believed to depend on long-term potentiation (LTP) of synapses within the hippocampal network. In this issue of Neuron, Dragoi et al. demonstrate that LTP can cause changes in the hippocampal representation of space without disrupting network dynamics. These results help define the elusive relationship between cellular-level synaptic plasticity and systems-l...

1. Extracellular recordings from hippocampal area CA1 lasting 2-8 h posttetanus were used to evaluate the duration of long-term potentiation (LTP) at two key developmental ages. 2. At day 11 LTP consistently endured for approximately 1 h before declining to baseline by 2.5 h posttetanus. The response could then be repotentiated, and in some cases, the repotentiation lasted longer than the origi...