Long-term potentiation

Long-term potentiation is a persistent increase in synaptic strength following particular patterns of neural activity. It is a cellular form of synaptic plasticity associated with learning and memory.

NMDA receptor: A glutamate receptor that conducts ions when glutamate binds and postsynaptic depolarization relieves its magnesium block. Its coincidence detection helps initiate many forms of potentiation.
Synaptic plasticity: The capacity of synapses to change their strength or function in response to activity or experience. Long-term potentiation is one lasting form of synaptic plasticity.
Terje Lømo: A Norwegian neuroscientist whose experiments helped establish long-term potentiation in the hippocampus. His 1960s recordings revealed persistent enhancement after repeated stimulation.
Hebbian theory: A theory that connections strengthen when presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons are repeatedly active together. Potentiation offers a cellular process consistent with this principle.
Synaptic consolidation: The stabilization of changes at individual synapses over minutes to hours after plasticity-inducing activity. Its molecular timeline raises questions about how potentiation becomes durable.
AMPA receptor: A glutamate-gated ion channel that mediates much of the fast excitatory transmission in the brain. Potentiated synapses often gain more AMPA receptors or increase their activity.
Chemical synapse: A junction where one cell releases chemical messengers that alter another cell's activity. Potentiation changes communication across this kind of junction.
Tim Bliss: A British neuroscientist who, with Terje Lømo, reported long-lasting synaptic enhancement in the rabbit hippocampus. Their 1973 paper gave the phenomenon its foundational experimental description.
Memory consolidation: The processes that stabilize newly formed memories over time. Synaptic potentiation is studied as one mechanism that may contribute to consolidation.
Systems consolidation: The gradual reorganization of memory representations across brain systems over time. It concerns memory persistence beyond the local synaptic changes measured in potentiation.

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