Roles of serine/threonine phosphatases in hippocampal synaptic plasticity

The regulation of glutamate-mediated excitatory neurotransmission has a cri tical role in many aspects of behaviour. Great effort has gone into underst anding the signal transduction cascades and effecters recruited in these pr ocesses, and protein phosphorylation has been identified as an important el ement. Although initial research in the field focused on the activity-depen dent activation of kinases and the I kinase dependence of various forms of synaptic plasticity, it has become increasingly clear that phosphatases hav e an equally dynamic and critical role in the activity-dependent alteration s of synaptic transmission. Here, we review the roles of serine/threonine p hosphatases in synaptic plasticity.