Silent synapses are abundant in the adultbrain MIT nature
and learn new things without having to modify existing conventional synapses, the researchers say.
When scientists first discovered silent synapses decades ago, they were seen primarily in the brains of young mice and other animals. During, these synapses are believed to help the brain acquire the massive amounts of information that babies need to learn about their environment and how to interact with it. In mice, these synapses were believed to disappear by about 12 days of age .
In the new study, the MIT team did not set out specifically to look for silent synapses. Instead, they were following up on an intriguing finding from a previous study in Harnett's lab. In that, the researchers showed that within a single neuron, dendrites—antenna-like extensions that protrude from neurons—can process synaptic input in different ways, depending on their location.
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