Developmental Plasticity of Inhibitory Circuitry, 2010

Neuroscience has long been focused on understanding neural plasticity in both development and adulthood. Experimental work in this area has focused almost entirely on plasticity at excitatory synapses. A growing body of evidence suggests that plasticity at inhibitory GABAergic and glycinergic synapses is of critical importance during both development and aging.

The book brings together the work of researchers investigating inhibitory plasticity at many levels of analysis and in several different preparations. This topic is of wide relevance across a number of different areas of research in neuroscience and neurology. Medical problems such as epilepsy, mental illness, drug abuse, and movement disorders can result from malfunctioning inhibitory circuits. Further, the maturation of inhibitory circuits may trigger the onset of critical periods of neural circuit plasticity, raising the possibility that such plastici periods could be reactivated for medical benefit by manipulating inhibitory circuitry.

Presents latest knowledge in order to reconcile conflicting data and to promote further progress

Reports on inhibitory plasticity that has a behavioral implication

Seeks to promote further studies to help clarify excitation-independent mechanisms underlying strengthening in inhibitory connections

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras