Spine calcium transients induced by synaptically-evoked action potentials can predict synapse location and establish synaptic democracy.

ABSTRACT: CA1 pyramidal neurons receive hundreds of synaptic inputs at different distances from the soma. Distance-dependent synaptic scaling enables distal and proximal synapses to influence the somatic membrane equally, a phenomenon called "synaptic democracy". How this is established is unclear. The backpropagating action potential (BAP) is hypothesised to provide distance-dependent information to synapses, allowing synaptic strengths to scale accordingly. Experimental measurements show that a BAP evoked by current injection at the soma causes calcium currents in the apical shaft whose amplitudes decay with distance from the soma. However, in vivo action potentials are not induced by somatic current injection but by synaptic inputs along the dendrites, which creates a different excitable state of

SUBMITTER: Sterratt DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3375220 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature