Evolution of Synapses

Evolution of Synapses
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Evolution of Synapses
Synaptic transmission takes place in both vertebrate and invertebrate organisms. According to Ryan and Grant (2009), synaptic transmission underlies the behavior of animals. Therefore, taking time to understand the evolution of synapses is imperative in knowing human disorders. In the Brain Science Podcast, Seth Grant says that the proteomic study of molecular components in the mammalian postsynapse points to an ancient protosynapse which existed long before neurons and metazoans evolved (Campbell, 2015). This means that the evolution of synapse can be traced back to the ancient protosynapse in unicellular organisms. Therefore, in the synaptic evolution, the signaling components evolved before nerve cells, and synaptic components evolved before the big brains
Seth Grant, in the Brain Science Podcast, points out that the synapse’s molecular composition is useful in tracing the brain evolution. However, this needs one to first conduct a proteomic study of all the proteins in the synapse to have an understanding of the evolutionary origin of synapses (Campbell, 2015). According to Ryan and Grant (2009), a proteomic study on a set of proteins like postsynaptic density and their complexes provides an evolutionary understanding of synapses. This is because the postsynaptic density present in creatures with nervous system evolved from an ancestral protosynaptic core found in both multicellular and…