title: Estimating the distribution of synaptic reliabilities.
abstract: Using whole cell recording from CA1 hippocampal pyramidal neurons in slices, we examined the progressive decrease of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-mediated synaptic responses in the presence of the open-channel blocker MK-801. Previous studies analyzing this decrease have proposed that hippocampal synapses fall into two distinct classes of release probabilities, whereas studies based on other methods indicate a broad distribution of synaptic reliabilities exists. Here we derive the theoretical relationship between the MK-801-mediated decrease in excitatory postsynaptic current amplitudes and the underlying distribution of synaptic reliabilities. We find that the MK-801 data are consistent with a continuous distribution of synaptic reliabilities, in agreement with studies examining individual synapses. In addition, changes in the MK-801-mediated decrease in response size as a consequence of altering release probability are consistent with this continuous distribution of synaptic reliabilities.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Department, University of California San Diego, La Jolla 92093, USA.
authors.forename: E P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Stevens
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016291:Dizocilpine Maleate / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018691:Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology*; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D016014:Linear Models; D011336:Probability; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D018691:Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate; D016291:Dizocilpine Maleate