Experience-dependent remodeling of synapses, glia, and extracellular matrix in cortical circuits

Cortical circuits are continuously shaped by experience, with sensory input, environmental enrichment, deprivation, and early-life adversity driving lasting changes in synaptic structure, function, and connectivity. Classic studies of critical periods established the cortex as a highly plastic system, where dendritic spines remodel, inhibitory networks mature, and circuits are refined to match the demands of the environment. More recent work has expanded this view well beyond neurons: microglia and astrocytes actively sculpt synapses through pruning, phagocytosis, and secreted factors, while the extracellular matrix, including perineuronal nets, gates plasticity by stabilizing or restricting structural change. Together, these neuronal, glial, and extracellular components form an integrated framework through which experience tunes cortical function across development and adulthood. Understanding how this multicomponent plasticity is orchestrated, and how it is disrupted by adverse experiences or disease, is central to explaining behavioral adaptation, learning, and vulnerability to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of how experience drives coordinated remodeling of synapses, glial cells, and the extracellular matrix in cortical circuits, and how these changes shape behavior across the lifespan. We seek studies that dissect the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which sensory experience, environmental enrichment, deprivation, stress, and early-life adversity reshape dendritic spines, dendritic morphology, excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and circuit-level connectivity. Contributions exploring the active roles of microglia and astrocytes in synapse formation, refinement, and elimination, as well as extracellular matrix remodeling and perineuronal net dynamics during and beyond critical periods, are particularly welcome. We also encourage work that links structural and functional plasticity to behavioral adaptation, learning, and the emergence or prevention of maladaptive states relevant to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders, integrating molecular, cellular, circuit, and behavioral perspectives.

We invite contributions spanning molecular, cellular, circuit, and behavioral research on experience-dependent plasticity in cortical circuits. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Dendritic spine and dendritic morphology dynamics in response to experience
• Maturation and remodeling of inhibitory circuits and excitation-inhibition balance
• Critical period mechanisms, opening, closure, and reactivation
• Microglial regulation of synapse pruning, refinement, and plasticity
• Astrocytic contributions to synapse formation, maintenance, and elimination
• Extracellular matrix remodeling and the role of perineuronal nets in cortical plasticity
• Effects of sensory deprivation, enrichment, and stress on cortical circuits
• Early-life adversity and its long-term impact on synaptic and structural plasticity
• Cross-talk between neurons, glia, and the extracellular matrix during plasticity
• Links between cortical remodeling and behavioral adaptation, learning, and disease vulnerability

We encourage a wide range of submissions, including original research, methods papers, brief research reports, data reports, systematic reviews, mini reviews and perspectives.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Experience-dependent plasticity, Dendritic spine remodeling, Perineuronal nets, Microglia and astrocyte-synapse interactions, Critical period plasticity

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.