long-term potentiation

English

Alternative forms
  • long term potentiation

Noun

long-term potentiation (uncountable)

  1. (neuroscience) A long-lasting (hours in vitro, weeks to months in vivo) increase, typically in amplitude, of the response of a postsynaptic neuron to a particular pattern of stimuli from a presynaptic neuron.
    • 1999, Matt Ridley, Genome, Harper Perennial, published 2004, page 228:
      Long-term potentiation, like sea-slug learning, absolutely depends on a change in the properties of synapses, in this case the synapses between the inputting cells and the pyramidal cells.

Synonyms

Coordinate terms
  • short-term potentiation

References
  • Escobar, Martha L. with Derrick, Brian (2007) “Long-Term Potentiation and Depression as Putative Mechanisms for Memory Formation”, in Bermúdez-Rattoni, Federico, editor, Neural Plasticity and Memory‎, CRC Press, retrieved 5 December 2009: “Tim Bliss and Terje Lomo1,2 first reported the phenomenon of long-term potentiation (LTP), an increase in synaptic efficacy following synaptic activity, over 30 years ago. Since then, LTP has generated enormous interest....”
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