IBI Seminar: Molecular dynamics at the synapse: what does it mean for memory encoding?

Anne-Sophie Hafner

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Join us in person in the PGI Hörsaal (Building 04.8, Room 365) or online at

https://go.fzj.de/IBI-Colloquium

Abstract:

Despite their role in long-term information storage, synapses are highly dynamic and composed of rather short-lived components. In the adult mouse brain, it takes a couple of days for half dendritic spines to be replaced. Similarly at the molecular level most synaptic proteins have half-lives in the order of a week meaning they constantly need to be replaced by freshly produced ones. Thus, understanding how long-term memory can arise from unstable elements is one of today’s neuroscience’s greatest challenges.

Using in vivo and in vitro approaches, we show that most synapses produce their own proteins locally at both the pre- and postsynaptic sites. Interestingly, classic plasticity paradigms produce unique patterns of rapid pre- and/or postsynaptic translation. This finding is driving a paradigm shift in our understanding of synaptic function. It is now possible to decode pre- and postsynaptic memory traces formed during learning.

Since 2021, Anne-Sophie Hafner is a (now tenured) Professor at the Donders Institute and Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In 2022, she received an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council for her project MemCode, to investigate the mechanisms of long-term memory storage in the brain.