Structural Plasticity and Hippocampal Function
453 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The hippocampus is a region of the mammalian brain that shows an impressive capacity for structural reorganization. Preexisting neural circuits undergo modifications in dendritic complexity and synapse number, and entirely novel neural connections are formed through the process of neurogenesis. These types of structural change were once thought to be restricted to development. However, it is now generally accepted that the hippocampus remains structurally plastic throughout life. This article reviews structural plasticity in the hippocampus over the lifespan, including how it is investigated experimentally. The modulation of structural plasticity by various experiential factors as well as the possible role it may have in hippocampal functions such as learning and memory, anxiety, and stress regulation are also considered. Although significant progress has been made in many of these areas, we highlight some of the outstanding issues that remain.
Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Developmental Neuroscience
Citations in the corpus
- Immune modulation of learning, memory, neural plasticity and neurogenesis. (2011, unknown): “important role in learning, memory and neural plasticity (Deng et al., 2010; Leuner and Gould, 2010): (1) Neurogenesis increases”
- Early maternal deprivation affects dentate gyrus structure and emotional learning in adult female rats (2010, unknown): “In addition to this, the dentate gyrus exhibits lifelong structural plasticity in the form of adult neurogenesis, a process that has been implicated in hippocampus-dependent learning and memory (Deng et al. 2010; Dupret et al. 2007; Kempermann 2005; Leuner and Gould 2010).”