Subsynaptic units as a universal system-forming and regulating factor of brain synapses

Dense projections and postsynaptic density — specialized structures of the synaptic cytoskeleton — are regarded as a single functional system of subsynaptic units. From this viewpoint, interneuronal relations in health and after brain ischemia are analyzed. It is shown that hyperplasia and recombination of the system of subsynaptic units are the major mechanisms responsible for reorganization of functionally mature interneuronal junctions in the mammalian and human brain. Translated fromByulleten' Eksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 124, No. 7, pp. 4–12, July, 1997