BK Channels Are Required for Multisensory Plasticity in the Oculomotor System.

ABSTRACT: Neural circuits are endowed with several forms of intrinsic and synaptic plasticity that could contribute to adaptive changes in behavior, but circuit complexities have hindered linking specific cellular mechanisms with their behavioral consequences. Eye movements generated by simple brainstem circuits provide a means for relating cellular plasticity to behavioral gain control. Here we show that firing rate potentiation, a form of intrinsic plasticity mediated by reductions in BK-type calcium-activated potassium currents in spontaneously firing neurons, is engaged during optokinetic reflex compensation for inner ear dysfunction. Vestibular loss triggers transient increases in postsynaptic excitability, occlusion of firing rate potentiation, and reductions in BK currents in vestibular nucle

SUBMITTER: Nelson AB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5575767 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature