title: Functional and structural properties of dentate granule cells with hilar basal dendrites in mouse entorhino-hippocampal slice cultures.
abstract: During postnatal development hippocampal dentate granule cells (GCs) often extend dendrites from the basal pole of their cell bodies into the hilar region. These so-called hilar basal dendrites (hBD) usually regress with maturation. However, hBDs may persist in a subset of mature GCs under certain conditions (both physiological and pathological). The functional role of these hBD-GCs remains not well understood. Here, we have studied hBD-GCs in mature (≥18 days in vitro) mouse entorhino-hippocampal slice cultures under control conditions and have compared their basic functional properties (basic intrinsic and synaptic properties) and structural properties (dendritic arborisation and spine densities) to those of neighboring GCs without hBDs in the same set of cultures. Except for the presence of hBDs, we did not detect major differences between the two GC populations. Furthermore, paired recordings of neighboring GCs with and without hBDs did not reveal evidence for a heavy aberrant GC-to-GC connectivity. Taken together, our data suggest that in control cultures the presence of hBDs on GCs is neither sufficient to predict alterations in the basic functional and structural properties of these GCs nor indicative of a heavy GC-to-GC connectivity between neighboring GCs.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Laurent Maximilian
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Willems
authors.forename: Matej
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vnencak
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zahn
authors.forename: Gerlind
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schuldt
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jedlicka
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Maggio
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Deller
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vlachos
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003712:Dendrites / Q000502:physiology*; D018891:Dentate Gyrus / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D018728:Entorhinal Cortex / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D019599:Mossy Fibers, Hippocampal / Q000502:physiology; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface / Q000378:metabolism; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology; D055366:Synaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D046509:Tissue Culture Techniques
chemical_list: D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface