Reluctant vesicles coaxed into the limelight.
Synapses respond to brief, repetitive stimulation with synaptic depression when initial transmitter release probability is high. Vesicle depletion has been a long-standing hypothesis for depression, but results unexplained by the depletion hypothesis have been nagging. In this issue of Neuron, Xu and Wu show that, under some conditions, calcium current inactivation explains stimulus-dependent depression at the calyx of Held.
Moulder
Krista L
KL
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA.
Mennerick
Steven
S
D000818:Animals; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D017729:Presynaptic Terminals / Q000502:physiology; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*; D013572:Synaptic Vesicles / Q000378:metabolism*