The vision posited by Ivan Pavlov about 100 years ago has more or less become reality today. Yet, it is still not clear how such activity patterns in the brain are encoded at the synaptic level. Synapses are the major sites of information exchange between neurons and can be regarded as the principal information-encoding units. Information may be encoded and stored both in the weights and in the wiring pattern of synapses. However, whether individual synapses contribute to lasting alterations of neuronal circuits evoked by learning and memory formation is still not clear. We are interested in resolving how synapses participate in the formation and storage of memory engrams in the brain. To this end we develop and use optical methods to investigate Shaffer collateral synapses of the hippocampus in vitro and in vivo.
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