Neuronal plasticity - The secret of memory performance?

In adaptation to new tasks plenty of quantitative and qualitative changes take place in the central nervous system (CNS). In this context, the relationship between a mother and her baby or child during the first years of life plays a pivotal role in brain maturation. Interferences during this phase can induce pronounced deficits in the emotional, social or intellectual development of the CNS. Similarly, the misuse of drugs has been shown to attenuate neuronal maturation making new associations between originally independent neuronal pathways and networks. Longer lasting pain is known to start changes or apoptosis in the peripheral as well as in the central nervous system. However, patients con be protected against these dysregulations by giving on ocute or preventive therapy. All the adaptations in the CNS mentioned above are related to huge mechanisms of neuronal plasticity. As a consequence of new informations reaching the brain the synaptic release of neurotransmitters can be altered as well as the type and number of their receptors in the synoptic membranes. The translation of genes can be storied and new proteins con be synthesized. The Summer School >>Neurobiology in Psychiatry<< 2000 gave on insight in some of these mechanisms of neuronal plasticity.