Patent ID: 7923015

Claim:
A method of evaluating the state of networking activity of a neuron, wherein the method comprises visualizing, ex vivo or in vitro, a biomarker in dendritic spines of the cells of a synapse of the neuron, wherein the biomarker comprises at least fragment C of tetanus toxin (TTC) tagged with a reporter protein chosen from beta-Galactosidase (β-gal), green fluorescent protein (GFP), red fluorescent protein (RFP), yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), cyan fluorescent protein (CFP), Discosoma sp, red fluorescent protein (DsRED), and Heteractis crispa far-red fluorescent variant (HcRED), and wherein an elevated amount of the biomarker in the dendritic spines relative to the amount of the biomarker in dendritic shaft regions indicates a neuron that is forming synaptic connections.