Introduction

• Synaptic dysfunction is a common early event in neurodegenerative diseases and age-associated cognitive decline
• Monitoring synaptic integrity in cultured neurons could serve as readout system for a variety of mental disorders (Figure 1).
• Importantly, loss of synaptic connectivity may prove to be a reversible phenomenon suitable for drug intervention. In contrast, neuronal loss occurring at disease end-stage is unlikely to be readily reversible. Indeed current therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent cognitive disorder in the world today, focus on enhancing the signaling properties of the remaining neuronal population rather than addressing the disease progression itself.
• Despite a clear link between spines, synaptic connectivity, neuro-degenerative and neuro-developmental diseases there remains a distinct lack of tools to assay such processes within modern drug discovery work-flows.