Long-term Potentiation Expands Information Content of Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus Synapses

Significance Understanding plasticity processes in the hippocampus is critical to our understanding of the biological underpinnings of memory. By applying information theory to quantify information content at synapses, we demonstrate that induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) increases the storage capacity of synapses in hippocampal dentate gyrus. Nevertheless, even after LTP, the information storage capacity of dentate synapses was much lower than in a different part of the hippocampus, area CA1. This work lays a foundation for future studies elucidating the time course for increased information storage content as well as the basis for interregion variability in information storage capacity.