Newborns need to store vast amounts of new information quickly as they learn to navigate the world. Silent synapses – the immature connections between neurons that have no neurotransmitter activity yet – are thought to be the hardware that allow this rapid information storage to occur early in life.
First discovered decades ago in newborn mice, these potential neurological intersections were thought to disappear as the animals aged. A recent study by researchers from MIT in the US has found this vanishing act might not be as extreme as initially presumed.
The team hadn’t set out to look specifically at these potential connections. Rather, they were continuing previous work on the locations of nerve-cell extensions called dendrites.
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