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Cited by 437

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 253 of the 253 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Mechanisms governing activity-dependent synaptic pruning in the developing mammalian CNS

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Faust, Travis E., Gunner, Georgia, Schafer, Dorothy P.·2021·Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Abstract

Almost 60 years have passed since the initial discovery by Hubel and Wiesel that changes in neuronal activity can elicit developmental rewiring of the central nervous system (CNS). Over this period, we have gained a more comprehensive picture of how both spontaneous neural activity and sensory experience-induced changes in neuronal activity guide CNS circuit development. Here we review activity-dependent synaptic pruning in the mammalian CNS, which we define as the removal of a subset of synapses, while others are maintained, in response to changes in neural activity in the developing nervous system. We discuss the mounting evidence that immune and cell-death molecules are important mechanistic links by which changes in neural activity guide the pruning of specific synapses, emphasizing the role of glial cells in this process. Finally, we discuss how these developmental pruning programmes may go awry in neurodevelopmental disorders of the human CNS, focusing on autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Together, our aim is to give an overview of how the field of activity-dependent pruning research has evolved, led to exciting new questions and guided the identification of new, therapeutically relevant mechanisms that result in aberrant circuit development in neurodevelopmental disorders. Neural circuits in the mammalian central nervous system are modified in response to neural activity during development. In this Review, Faust and colleagues provide an overview of the mechanisms underlying developmental synaptic pruning and how alterations in this process can occur in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

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Metadata

Authors
Faust, T. E., Gunner, G., & Schafer, D. P.
Venue
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Published
2021-09-20
Volume
22
Issue
11
Pages
657-673
ISSN
  • 1471-003X (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-0048
OpenAlex
W3199494145
Cited by
437
References
253
FWCI
8.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Mechanisms governing activity-dependent synaptic pruning in the developing mammalian CNS. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/s41583-021-00507-y
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Faust, T. E., Gunner, G., & Schafer, D. P. (2021). Mechanisms governing activity-dependent synaptic pruning in the developing mammalian CNS. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-021-00507-y

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