BACKGROUND The minimum alveolar concentration is determined in the spinal cord rather than in the brain. Xenon inhibits glutamatergic excitatory synaptic transmission in the dorsal horn neurons. However, its actions in the ventral horn neurons have not been investigated. METHODS The effects of 50 or 75% xenon on excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission were examined in the spinal lamin...

Inhibitory synaptic plasticity is important for shaping both neuronal excitability and network activity. Here we investigate the input and GABA(A) receptor subunit specificity of inhibitory synaptic plasticity by studying cerebellar interneuron-Purkinje cell (PC) synapses. Depolarizing PCs initiated a long-lasting increase in GABA-mediated synaptic currents. By stimulating individual interneuro...

Effect of postsynaptic activity on the synaptic efficacy was studied in Xenopus nerve-muscle cultures. Repetitive postsynaptic depolarizations induced by injection of current pulses into singly innervated myocytes resulted in significant reduction in the frequency of spontaneous synaptic currents and the amplitude of nerve-evoked synaptic currents at the majority of synapses that showed immatur...

18 Synaptic communication requires proper coupling between voltage-gated calcium (CaV) 19 channels and synaptic vesicles. In photoreceptors, L-type CaV channels are clustered close to 20 synaptic ribbon release sites. Although clustered, CaV channels move continuously within a 21 confined domain slightly larger than the base of the ribbon. We hypothesized that expanding 22 CaV channel confineme...

Striatonigral and striatopallidal projecting medium spiny neurons (MSNs) express dopamine D1 (D1+) and D2 receptors (D2+), respectively. Both classes receive extensive GABAergic input via expression of synaptic, perisynaptic, and extrasynaptic GABAA receptors. The activation patterns of different presynaptic GABAergic neurons produce transient and sustained GABAA receptor-mediated conductance t...

At the core of the rhythmically active leech heartbeat central pattern generator are pairs of mutually inhibitory interneurons. Synaptic transmission between these interneurons consists of spike-mediated and graded components, both of which wax and wane on a cycle-by-cycle basis. Low-threshold Ca2+ currents gate the graded component. Ca imaging experiments indicate that these low-threshold curr...

The control of neurotransmitter release by modulation of presynaptic calcium influx was investigated at the granule cell to Purkinje cell synapse in rat cerebellar slices. Excitatory post-synaptic currents were measured using whole cell voltage clamp, and changes in presynaptic Ca influx were determined with the Ca-sensitive dye mag-fura-5. Single stimuli of the parallel fibers evoked rapid cha...

We consider the problem of separating and determining the time courses of various synaptic input currents from simultaneous recordings of the time courses of membrane potentials, including spikes, of several neurons. Employing a suitable mathematical model, the method involves the differentiation of potentials and the use of ICA to determine the relative strengths of various synaptic inputs. At...

This paper is concerned with the analysis of observations made on a system that is being stimulated at ®xed time intervals but where the precise nature and effect of any individual stimulus is unknown. The realized values are modelled as a stochastic process consisting of a random signal embedded in noise. The aim of the analysis is to use the data to unravel the unknown structure of the system...