Interestingly, GluR4 is preferentially expressed in the neonatal brain [14], potentially implicating it in circuit and synapse development.
Immune-system and brain-synapse development are particularly vulnerable.
Therefore, LAR-RPTP-interacting postsynaptic organizers seem to regulate excitatory and inhibitory synapse development in diverse brain regions, and SALM3 and IL1RAPL1, in particular, appear important for hippocampal excitatory synapse development.
Protein ubiquitination is particularly important in regulating key activities in the brain, including cellular proliferation, synapse development, neuronal transmission, and synaptic plasticity.
The brain contains about 20% of whole body cholesterol, brain cholesterol is deeply involved in synapse development, synapse formation, dentrite differentiation, axonal elongation, and long-term potentiation.
miRNAs are small non-coding RNAs, particularly abundant in the nervous system, that play key roles as regulatory molecules in processes such as neurogenesis, synapse development and plasticity in the brain.
A number of studies have shown that the vertebrate neuroligin-neurexin complex appears to influence synapse specificity through excitatory versus inhibitory synapse development, and thus is predicted to influence the excitatory/inhibitory synapse ratio in the brain [8], [9], [10], [11], [12].
During the later stages of synapse development and in mature synapses, CAMs regulate synaptic structure and function.
Selective synapse development determines how complex neuronal networks in the brain are formed.
Synapse development requires differentiation of presynaptic neurotransmitter release sites and postsynaptic receptive apparatus coordinated by synapse organizing proteins.
