Two scientists from Life Sciences Center (LSC) Institute of Biosciences, PhD Urtė Neniškytė and Augustė Vadišiūtė, contributed to the article that was published in "Nature Communications" on March 26.
International team of scientists, who are mostly from EMBL, have captured microglia nibbling on brain synapses. The findings show that the special glial cells help synapses grow and rearrange, demonstrating the essential role of microglia in brain development. These findings allow scientists to propose a mechanism for the facilitatory role of microglia in synaptic circuit remodeling and maturation.
Image: Multiple synapse heads send out filopodia (green) converging on one microglia (red), as seen by focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIBSEM).
© L. Weinhard, EMBL Rome
To read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03566-5