" ... Here we demonstrate that the intrinsic firing patterns of CA3 neurons of the rat hippocampus in vitro undergo rapid long-term plasticity in response to a few minutes of only subthreshold synaptic conditioning. This plasticity on the spike-timing could also be induced by intrasomatic injection of subthreshold depolarizing pulses and was blocked by kinase inhibitors, indicating that discharge dynamics are modulated locally. Cluster analysis of firing patterns before and after conditioning revealed systematic transitions towards adapting and intrinsic burst behaviours, irrespective of the patterns initially exhibited by the cells. We used a conductance-based model to decide appropriate pharmacological blockade, and found that the observed transitions are likely due to recruitment of low-voltage calcium and Kv7 potassium conductances. We conclude that CA3 neurons adapt their conductance profile to the subthreshold activity of their input, so that their intrinsic firing pattern is not a static signature, but rather a reflection of their history of subthreshold activity. In this way, recurrent output from CA3 neurons may collectively shape the temporal dynamics of their embedding circuits."
Model Type: Neuron or other electrically excitable cell
Region(s) or Organism(s): Hippocampus
Cell Type(s): Hippocampus CA3 pyramidal GLU cell
Model Concept(s): Activity Patterns; Simplified Models
Simulation Environment: NEURON; Python
Implementer(s): Honnuraiah, Suraj [hs at ini.phys.ethz.ch]; Gutierrez, Adrian [agutie at ini.uzh.ch]; Soldado-Magraner, Saray [ssaray at ini.uzh.ch]
References:
Soldado-Magraner S et al. (2020). Conditioning by Subthreshold Synaptic Input Changes the Intrinsic Firing Pattern of CA3 Hippocampal Neurons. Journal of neurophysiology. 123 [PubMed]