title: Regular spiking and intrinsic bursting pyramidal cells show orthogonal forms of experience-dependent plasticity in layer V of barrel cortex.
abstract: Most functional plasticity studies in the cortex have focused on layers (L) II/III and IV, whereas relatively little is known of LV. Structural measurements of dendritic spines in vivo suggest some specialization among LV cell subtypes. We therefore studied experience-dependent plasticity in the barrel cortex using intracellular recordings to distinguish regular spiking (RS) and intrinsic bursting (IB) subtypes. Postsynaptic potentials and suprathreshold responses in vivo revealed a remarkable dichotomy in RS and IB cell plasticity; spared whisker potentiation occurred in IB but not RS cells while deprived whisker depression occurred in RS but not IB cells. Similar RS/IB differences were found in the LII/III to V connections in brain slices. Modeling studies showed that subthreshold changes predicted the suprathreshold changes. These studies demonstrate the major functional partition of plasticity within a single cortical layer and reveal the LII/III to LV connection as a major excitatory locus of cortical plasticity.
authors.affiliation: School of Bioscience, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AX, UK.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.forename: Leopoldo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Petreanu
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Karel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Svoboda
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fox
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D051379:Mice; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D014738:Vibrissae / Q000502:physiology