Abstract
Astrocytes are complex glial cells that play many essential roles in the brain, including the fine-tuning of synaptic activity and blood flow. These roles are linked to fluctuations in intracellular Ca(2+) within astrocytes. Recent advances in imaging techniques have identified localized Ca(2+) transients within the fine processes of the astrocytic structure, which we term microdomain Ca(2+) events. These Ca(2+) transients are very diverse and occur under different conditions, including in the presence or absence of surrounding circuit activity. This complexity suggests that different signalling mechanisms mediate microdomain events which may then encode specific astrocyte functions from the modulation of synapses up to brain circuits and behaviour. Several recent studies have shown that a subset of astrocyte microdomain Ca(2+) events occur rapidly following local neuronal circuit activity. In this review, we consider the physiological relevance of microdomain astrocyte Ca(2+) signalling within brain circuits and outline possible pathways of extracellular Ca(2+) influx through ionotropic receptors and other Ca(2+) ion channels, which may contribute to astrocyte microdomain events with potentially fast dynamics.