Learning and memory are crucial aspects of everyday life. When we learn, our neurons use chemical and molecular signals to change their shapes and strengthen connections between neurons, a process known as synaptic plasticity. In Ryohei Yasuda’s lab at Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI), scientists are working to understand how these molecules send messages throughout the neuron. To achieve this, his team is constantly working to develop high-resolution imaging techniques to visualize the activity and location of the molecules involved in the process. Ada Tang, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in Yasuda’s lab, developed new molecular biosensors, which helped her visualize the activity of two signaling proteins crucial to synaptic plasticity, ERK and PKA. These proteins send messages to other proteins by adding a phosphate group to the target proteins. The team found that these proteins, which were already known to play a role in synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory, have surprising properties in their activity. The work was published in March 2017 in Neuron.
