title: Experience-dependent changes in extracellular spike amplitude may reflect regulation of dendritic action potential back-propagation in rat hippocampal pyramidal cells.
abstract: Activity-dependent attenuations in extracellular spike amplitude have been shown to correlate with a decrease in the effectiveness with which somatic action potentials back-propagate into the dendritic arbor of hippocampal pyramidal cells. In this paper we demonstrate that activity-dependent attenuations in amplitude occur during behavior and that the amount of attenuation is reduced with an animal's experience in an environment. The observed reductions are caused by an animal's experience within a specific environmental context, are dependent on functional NMDA receptors, and are accompanied by an increase in the effective coupling of pyramidal cells and interneurons. These results provide an important step in linking together in vivo studies with in vitro data and suggest that mechanisms of plasticity engaged during behavior may be sufficient to alter the biophysical and integrative properties of hippocampal pyramidal cells.
authors.affiliation: The Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Center for Learning and Memory, and the RIKEN-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Neuroscience Research Center, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Quirk
authors.forename: K I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Blum
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Wilson
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003712:Dendrites / Q000502:physiology*; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D004777:Environment; D005110:Extracellular Space / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D007395:Interneurons / Q000502:physiology; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors
chemical_list: D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate