AMPA and NMDA Receptors

Professor Graham Collingridge describes the roles played by NMDA and AMPA receptors in long-term potentiation (LTP).

So the way we believe LTP works is that there is a brief activation of the NMDA receptor, and then this leads to alterations in how the AMPA receptor works. So, in LTP, the AMPA receptor becomes more efficient and this leads to an increase in the synaptic communication. It is believed that this can occur because at the synapse, there is an increase in the number of AMPA receptors which are present, and under certain different circumstances the properties of the AMPA receptor may be changed so that they work more efficiently.