The Aplysia sensorimotor synapse is a key site of plasticity for several simple forms of learning. Intracellular stimulation of sensory neurons to fire a burst of action potentials at 10 Hz for 1 sec led to significant homosynaptic depression of postsynaptic responses. During the burst, the steady-state depressed phase of the postsynaptic response, which was only 20% of the initial EPSP of the burst, still contributed to firing the motor neuron. To explore the functional contribution of transient homosynaptic depression to the response of the motor neuron, computer simulations of the sensorimotor synapse with and without depression were compared. Depression allowed the motor neuron to produce graded responses over a wide range of presynaptic input strength. Thus, synaptic depression increased the dynamic range of the sensorimotor synapse and can, in principle, have a profound effect on information processing. Please see paper for results and details.
Model Type: Realistic Network
Region(s) or Organism(s): Aplysia
Cell Type(s): Aplysia sensory neuron; Aplysia motor neuron
Currents: I Na,t; I N; I A; I K; I Calcium; I A, slow
Receptors: AMPA
Model Concept(s): Synaptic Plasticity; Action Potentials; Facilitation; Depression; Invertebrate; Sensory processing
Simulation Environment: SNNAP
Implementer(s): Phares, Gregg A [gregg.a.phares at uth.tmc.edu]
References:
Phares GA, Antzoulatos EG, Baxter DA, Byrne JH. (2003). Burst-induced synaptic depression and its modulation contribute to information transfer at Aplysia sensorimotor synapses: empirical and computational analyses. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 23 [PubMed]