The scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, from group Nature, has just published in its May issue a article by Dr. Isabel Pérez-Otaño, researcher at research center Applied Medicine (CIMA) of the University of Navarra. Together with colleagues from the Salk Institute (California) and Duke University (North Carolina), among others, she describes a novel process to modify the functioning of synaptic connections. Synapses are microscopic Structures that connect neurons to each other to form neural networks.

According to Dr. Pérez-Otaño, "synaptic alterations occur in the brain in diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other development pathologies in children (autism, Down syndrome) or schizophrenia in adolescents".

Since his finding by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, "neurobiologists have made great progress in the knowledge of the molecules that form these Structures and how the brain continuously remodels them to form new or more synapses, strengthen existing synapses or eliminate unnecessary ones".

Thinking, remembering and forgetting

The researcher at CIMA explains that "this remodeling capacity, known as "synaptic plasticity", allows us to think, create new memories or forget insignificant details. If the remodeling process does not work properly, our brain starts to fail".

In the article published in Nature Neuroscience, the group scientists sample how "this process is responsible for the precise elimination of only some components of the synapse, the NMDA receptors, molecules that encode information stored during the brain's development or in learning processes and report, by recruiting a new molecule that selectively interacts with the receptor".

The authors predict that this mechanism and others similar, yet to be discovered, will be the core topic to "understand how our brain decides which synapses to keep and which to eliminate in order to maintain the delicate balance that ensures normal functioning". Dr. Pérez-Otaño's team is now investigating at CIMA whether this synaptic elimination process is altered in brain diseases and, if so, how it contributes to the onset of symptoms. In the medium term, deadline, they intend to study possible therapeutic solutions.

Along with the researcher from CIMA of the University of Navarra, the article, with different Degrees of participation, is signed by Drs. Michael D. Ehlers and Donald C. Lo (Duke University), Steven J. Tavalin (University of Tennessee), Markus Plomann and Jan Modregger (University of Cologne), Xiao-Bo Liu and Edward G. Jones (University of California, Davis), Stephen F. Heinemann (The Salk Institute, California) and Rafael Luján (University of Castilla-La Mancha).