Mathematical Models of Protein Receptor Trafficking and Its Role in Synaptic Plasticity

AMPA receptors mediate the majority of fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, and recent experimental evidence suggests that AMPA receptor trafficking regulates synaptic strength, a phenomenon implicated in learning and memory. There are two major mechanisms of AMPA receptor trafficking: exo/endocytic exchange of surface receptors with intracellular receptor pools, and lateral diffusion of surface receptors within the plasma membrane. In this talk we review some mathematical models of these trafficking mechanisms, and show how they can account for a variety of physiological data regarding plasticity at the single-synapse and multi-synapse levels.

Paul Bressloff is a Professor of Mathematics and a member of the Interdepartmental Program in Neuroscience at the University of Utah. His research interests include mathematical modelling of primary visual cortex, geometric visual hallucinations, synaptic plasticity, travelling waves in excitable neural media, and the dynamics of coupled oscillators.