22 Dec 2005

Today, a study summarized in our SfN Conference News appeared in Neuron. First author John Cirrito, working with Dave Holtzman, Steven Paul, and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Lilly Research Laboratories in Indianapolis, used an in-vivo microdialysis system to discover that increasing synaptic activity drives up levels of Aβ in the interstitial fluid within minutes. The mechanism is unclear but possibly tied to presynaptic vesicle exocytosis, the authors suggest. Read the ARF conference story for a broader description of how the focus of Aβ research is shifting toward synaptic biology, and ponder the questions such studies raise about mental activity and neurodegeneration.—Gabrielle Strobel