objective: low-frequency stimulation (lfs) exerts suppressive effects in kindled animals. it is believed that overstimulated glutamatergic and decreased gabaergic transmission have long been associated with seizure activity. in this study, we investigated the effect of electrical lfs on different parameters of spontaneous excitatory and inhibitory post-synaptic currents (sepscs and sipscs) in h...

The high density of cannabinoid receptors in the cerebellum and the degradation of motor coordination produced by cannabinoid intoxication suggest that synaptic transmission in the cerebellum may be strongly regulated by cannabinoid receptors. Therefore the effects of exogenous cannabinoids on synapses received by Purkinje cells were investigated in rat cerebellar slices. Parallel fiber-evoked ...

Spontaneous inhibitory and excitatory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs and sEPSCs) were identified and characterized with whole cell and perforated patch voltage-clamp recordings in adult mouse retinal ganglion cells. Pharmacological dissection revealed that all cells were driven by spontaneous synaptic inputs mediated by glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) receptors. One-half (7/14) o...

Changes in mIPSCs and sIPSCs after kainate treatment: possible actions mediated by the direct activation of kainate receptors To the Editor: In a very interesting paper, Shao and Dudek (2005) described the changes in miniature inhibitory postsyn-aptic currents (mIPSCs) and spontaneous inhibitory synaptic currents (sIPSCs) that occur after kainate treatment recorded in hippocampal dentate granul...

Hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells receive two kinetic classes of GABA(A) receptor-mediated inhibition: slow dendritic inhibitory postsynaptic currents (GABA(A,slow) IPSCs) and fast perisomatic (GABA(A,fast)) IPSCs. These two classes of IPSCs are likely generated by two distinct groups of interneurons, and we have previously shown that the kinetics of the IPSCs have important functional consequenc...

1. Spontaneous inhibitory synaptic currents (sIPSCs) were studied with whole cell voltage-clamp recordings from 131 pyramidal cells in adult rat somatosensory cortical slices. Neurons were intracellulary labeled with biocytin and classified as supragranular (SG, layers 2-3), layer IV (IV), or infragranular (IG, layer V) on the basis of the laminar localization of their somata. Somatic areas wer...

Action potential-independent “miniature” synaptic events have a long tradition in electrophysiology as helpful tools to investigate the quantal properties and plasticity mechanisms of synaptic transmission (Katz 1969). Since the introduction of high-resolution whole cell patch clamping in brain slices (Edwards et al. 1990), mini analysis has also been employed in epilepsy research, primarily to...

Cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) extrasynaptically express GABAA receptors containing 6 x subunits, which mediate tonic inhibitory currents. Although it has been shown that the function of these receptors is potently and directly enhanced by ethanol, this finding has not been reproducible across different laboratories. In outbred Sprague-Dawley rats, a naturally occurring arginine (R) to gluta...

Activation of ventral tegmental area (VTA)-dopaminergic (DA) neurons by ethanol has been implicated in the rewarding and reinforcing actions of ethanol. GABAergic transmission is thought to play an important role in regulating the activity of DA neurons. We have reported previously that ethanol enhances GABA release onto VTA-DA neurons in a brain slice preparation. Because intraterminal Ca leve...