Regulation of synaptic connectivity by glia

By C. Eroglu, B. Barres. Nature, 2010

775 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The human brain contains more than 100 trillion (1014) synaptic connections, which form all of its neural circuits. Neuroscientists have long been interested in how this complex synaptic web is weaved during development and remodelled during learning and disease. Recent studies have uncovered that glial cells are important regulators of synaptic connectivity. These cells are far more active than was previously thought and are powerful controllers of synapse formation, function, plasticity and elimination, both in health and disease. Understanding how signalling between glia and neurons regulates synaptic development will offer new insight into how the nervous system works and provide new targets for the treatment of neurological diseases.

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Citations in the corpus

Astrocyte reactivity and reactive astrogliosis: costs and benefits. (2014, background): “Astrocytes were shown to control formation, maintenance, function, and removal of neuronal synapses (45, 68, 168, 228, 237, 238); help to control blood flow (104, 120, 153, 207, 276); and together with pericytes regulate the bloodbrain barrier (1, 11, 17, 133).”
The complement system: an unexpected role in synaptic pruning during development and disease. (2012, background): “Immature astrocytes secrete an array of cytokines and other molecules that promote synapse formation and synaptic plasticity (Allen & Barres 2005, Bolton & Eroglu 2009, Eroglu & Barres 2010).”
Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions (2015, background): “Astrocytes are derived from neural stem cells (79), whose proportion has been estimated to be ~0.”