Development
"Schaffer collateral is the conductor of the orchestra, but not the actual instrument that plays the music" - Dr. Patrick K. Stanton .An individual needs the functional hippocampus to store long-term memories as synaptic plasticity in terms of storing information. Once those memories are stored, they remain stored in very long time. However, they slowly fade away, which means that there are some roles for the hippocampus when talking to the neocortex in order to prevent diminishing those memories away. It is clear that whatever plastic changes occurring in the hippocampus involve in directing the process by which memories get stored.
The Schaffer collateral is involved in activity-dependent plasticity and the information processes that always are processed through the hippocampus all the time. The Schaffer collateral clearly affects whether the target cells fire action potentials or not. However, at the same time, it is triggering the process that takes much longer whereby some synapses get stronger and some get weaker, and overall the patterns of synaptic strength of the network all evolve over time.
Moreover, Schaffer collateral axons develop excitatory synapses that are scattered over the dendritic arborization of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. In the early stage of long-term potentiation, Schaffer collaterals release glutamate that binds to AMPA receptors of CA1-dendrites. The process of developing a network of CA3-to-CA1 recurrent excitatory glutamatergic synapses alters the frequency of spontaneous action potentials in Schaffer collaterals. By adulthood, CA3 recurrent network activity is reduced, the frequency of spontaneous action potentials is decreased in Schaffer collaterals, and a single release locus synapse with one dendritic spine on a given CA1 pyramidal neuron can be developed by Schaffer collateral axons.
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