Fig. 1
From: Roles of palmitoylation in structural long-term synaptic plasticity
Spine enlargement in LTP and shrinkage in LTD. LTP triggers spine enlargement (the transient, fast increase to ~ 200 to 400% of spine head volume at 1–5 min, followed by ~ 50% increase persisting for over 1 h), which is supported by an increased actin cytoskeleton network within the spine [17,18,19,20,21,22]. Meanwhile, more AMPARs are recruited to the postsynaptic membrane through exocytosis and anchored on the postsynaptic density (PSD), which is also increased in the persistent phase of LTP. Conversely, LTD induces AMPAR endocytosis and spine shrinkage (a decrease by ~ 30% of spine head volume at 45 min after low-frequency stimulation) with depolymerization of the actin cytoskeleton network [18, 22, 23]