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. 2014 Nov 3;8:123. doi: 10.3389/fnana.2014.00123

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Copyright © 2014 Bernardinelli, Nikonenko and Muller.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Regulation of local spine growth by nitric oxide (NO). Left panel: neuronal NO synthase (nNOS), present in the postsynaptic density and tightly associated with PSD-95 and NMDA receptors, generates NO upon NMDA receptor activation and calcium influx. Middle panel: NO generated at activated synapses by LTP diffuses locally and triggers the activation of a cGMP-dependent cascade leading to the phosphorylation of the cytoskeleton regulatory protein VASP by cGMP-dependent kinase. This in turn promotes actin filament elongation and spine formation. Right panel: this mechanisms allows the formation of clusters of spine synapses around activated contacts, a phenomenon absent in nNOS deficient mice. The electron microscopy image illustrates clusters of dendritic spines (filled in rose) in the hippocampus of wild type mouse raised in an enriched environment.