Aberrant Synaptic PTEN in Symptomatic Alzheimer's Patients May Link Synaptic Depression to Network Failure.

ABSTRACT: In Alzheimer's disease (AD), Amyloid β (Aβ) impairs synaptic function by inhibiting long-term potentiation (LTP), and by facilitating long-term depression (LTD). There is now evidence from AD models that Aβ provokes this shift toward synaptic depression by triggering the access to and accumulation of PTEN in the postsynaptic terminal of hippocampal neurons. Here we quantified the PTEN in 196,138 individual excitatory dentate gyrus synapses from AD patients at different stages of the disease and from controls with no neuropathological findings. We detected a gradual increase of synaptic PTEN in AD brains as the disease progresses, in conjunction with a significant decrease in synaptic density. The synapses that remain in symptomatic AD patients are more likely to be smaller and exhibit fewe

SUBMITTER: Diaz Gonzalez M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8144462 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature