title: Age-dependent decline in supragranular long-term synaptic plasticity by increased inhibition during the critical period in the rat primary visual cortex.
abstract: Supragranular long-term potentiation (LTP) and depression (LTD) are continuously induced in the pathway from layer 4 during the critical period in the rodent primary visual cortex, which limits the use of supragranular long-term synaptic plasticity as a synaptic model for the mechanism of ocular dominance (OD) plasticity. The results of the present study demonstrate that the pulse duration of extracellular stimulation to evoke a field potential (FP) is critical to induction of LTP and LTD in this pathway. LTP and LTD were induced in the pathway from layer 4 to layer 2/3 in slices from 3-wk-old rats when FPs were evoked by 0.1- and 0.2-ms pulses. LTP and LTD were induced in slices from 5-wk-old rats when evoked by stimulation with a 0.2-ms pulse but not by stimulation with a 0.1-ms pulse. Both the inhibitory component of FP and the inhibitory/excitatory postsynaptic potential amplitude ratio evoked by stimulation with a 0.1-ms pulse were greater than the values elicited by a 0.2-ms pulse. Stimulation with a 0.1-ms pulse at various intensities that showed the similar inhibitory FP component with the 0.2-ms pulse induced both LTD and LTP in 5-wk-old rats. Thus extracellular stimulation with shorter-duration pulses at higher intensity resulted in greater inhibition than that observed with longer-duration pulses at low intensity. This increased inhibition might be involved in the age-dependent decline of synaptic plasticity during the critical period. These results provide an alternative synaptic model for the mechanism of OD plasticity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 505 Banpo-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul 137-701, South Korea.
authors.forename: Hyun-Jong
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.forename: Kwang-Hyun
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Hyun-Sok
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sang June
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.forename: Myung-Suk
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Duck-Joo
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Rhie
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D023882:Dominance, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate / Q000502:physiology; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate