Abstract: Synaptic plasticity is traditionally viewed as a localized event taking place at a single synapse. Yet growing experimental evidence indicates that this picture needs to be   revised to consider neighboring spines and their plasticity status, the initial size of the spine and the protein availability in the dendritic shaft serving the synapses in question. I will present our recent results modeling multi-spine plasticity and the protein dynamics overall and will show how the molecular energy budget can influence synaptic plasticity.