Opera Medica et Physiologica

A Methodology of Calcium Dynamics Registration in Presynaptic Terminals of Neurons In Situ

Abstract: 

For many decades synaptic circuits have been associated solely with cell-cell neuronal connections represented by the presynaptic terminal, which releases a neurotransmitter, and the postsynaptic neuronal specialization, a site where the neurotransmitter can activate synaptic receptors. However, due to technical limitations these studies usually were linked only to the postsynaptic site. For a long while, the widespread techniques that rapidly advanced neurophysiology have been little used in understanding the way how Ca2+-dependent release of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate from neuronal axons can be measured directly. Only with the advance of live cell imaging, it became possible to detect internal Ca2+ dynamics in presynaptic boutons with the high temporal resolution.