Everything you wanted to know about spines, but were afraid to ask.

Modern optical neurobiology allows us to observe and control single synapses for the first time (though it is a little "depressing" to compare our in vivo 2-photon images (above) with those of Cajal-he wasn't so bad without an inffinity corrected microscope). Mike Häusser and colleagues have just published a review of spine function in Physiological Reviews. It is an amazing effort, having 884 references! We should all thank them over a beer at the SfN for doing all this hard work, gathering so much important information in one place.

P. Jesper Sjöström, Ede A. Rancz, Arnd Roth, and Michael Häusser Dendritic Excitability and Synaptic Plasticity Physiol. Rev. (2008) 88: 769-840. doi:10.1152/physrev.00016.2007