CELL: Small glial cells reshape extracellular matrix and promote synaptic plasticity

Synaptic remodeling is essential for coding learning memories into neural loopsRecently, researchers discovered a molecular interaction between neurons and small glial cells that drives empirically dependent synaptic remodeling in the hippocampusresearchers found that cytokine leukocyte interleukin-33 (IL-33) is expressed in an empirically dependent manner by adult hippocampus neurons and defines a subset of neurons with stronger synaptic plasticitythe loss of neuronil-33 or small glial IL-33 receptors can lead to impaired synaptic plasticity, reduced integration of new neurons, and reduced accuracy of remote fear memoryin older mice, memory accuracy and neuronIL-33 were reduced, and the acquisition of IL-33 function eased the decrease in age-related synaptic plasticitythe researchers also found that neuronil IL-33 can guide small glial cells to gobble at the extracellular matrix (ECM), whose loss causes Damage to ECM, while the accumulation of ECM proteins in contact with synapsesin short, these data define a cellular mechanism through which small glial cells regulate empirically dependent synaptic remodeling and promote memory consolidation