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Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 11, 72-84, Copyright © 1991 by Society for Neuroscience
Synaptic transmission between individual pyramidal neurons of the rat visual cortex in vitro
A Mason, A Nicoll and K Stratford
University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford, U.K.
Synaptic transmission between pairs of neurons in layer 2/3 of in vitro
slices from the rat visual cortex was studied by dual intracellular
recording. The intrinsic electrophysiological properties of these neurons
suggested that they were pyramidal cells. More than 1/3 of the total number
of synaptically connected neurons were stained by intracellular
iontophoresis of biocytin, and all had pyramidal morphology. Postsynaptic
potentials (PSPs) were evoked by single action potentials (elicited by
current injection) in presynaptic cells. Measurements of PSP latency,
amplitude, and shape were made on spike- triggered averages. Forty-eight
synaptic connections were found out of a possible total of 549, equivalent
to a probability of about 0.09. For these 48 connections, the distance
between the 2 impalement sites ranged from 50 to 340 microns. All PSPs were
depolarizing at rest (-74 +/- 5 mV, mean +/- SD), and all 14 of the PSPs
that were also recorded with the postsynaptic cell depolarized to around
action potential threshold (about -55 mV) remained depolarizing. PSPs had
short latencies (1.2 +/- 0.6 msec, mean +/- SD), suggesting that they were
mediated by monosynaptic pathways. Peak amplitudes of the averaged PSPs
varied widely (range, 0.05-2.08 mV), but the majority were less than 0.5
mV. PSPs decayed exponentially with time constants that were correlated
with, but slightly longer than, the membrane time constants of the
postsynaptic cells measured using injected current pulses. Four cell pairs
were connected reciprocally, and 6 examples of convergent input were found
in which a single cell was postsynaptic to more than 1 presynaptic cell.
Trial-to-trial fluctuations in PSP amplitude were analyzed for 16 synaptic
connections. The amplitude of the PSP evoked by a presynaptic action
potential fluctuated more than could be accounted for by the background
noise.
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