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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 23, 2005, 25(12):3086-3094; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4433-04.2005

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
The Retrograde Spread of Synaptic Potentials and Recruitment of Presynaptic Inputs

Brian L. Antonsen, Jens Herberholz, and Donald H. Edwards

Brains and Behavior Program and Department of Biology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30302-4010

Lateral excitation is a mechanism for amplifying coordinated input to postsynaptic neurons that has been described recently in several species. Here, we describe how a postsynaptic neuron, the lateral giant (LG) escape command neuron, enhances lateral excitation among its presynaptic mechanosensory afferents in the crayfish tailfan. A lateral excitatory network exists among electrically coupled tailfan primary afferents, mediated through central electrical synapses. EPSPs elicited in LG dendrites as a result of mechanosensory stimulation spread antidromically back through electrical junctions to unstimulated afferents, summate with EPSPs elicited through direct afferent-to-afferent connections, and contribute to recruitment of these afferents. Antidromic potentials are larger if the afferent is closer to the initial input on LG dendrites, which could create a spatial filtering mechanism within the network. This pathway also broadens the temporal window over which lateral excitation can occur, because of the delay required for EPSPs to spread through the large LG dendrites. The delay allows subthreshold inputs to the LG to have a priming effect on the lateral excitatory network and lowers the threshold of the network in response to a second, short-latency stimulus. Retrograde communication within neuronal pathways has been described in a number of vertebrate and invertebrate species. A mechanism of antidromic passage of depolarizing current from a neuron to its presynaptic afferents, similar to that described here in an invertebrate, is also present in a vertebrate (fish). This raises the possibility that short-term retrograde modulation of presynaptic elements through electrical junctions may be common.

Key words: sensorimotor; sensory neurons; crustacea; behavior; escape; gap junction

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Received Oct 26, 2004; revised February 10, 2005; accepted February 11, 2005.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. L. Antonsen and D. H. Edwards Mechanisms of Serotonergic Facilitation of a Command Neuron J Neurophysiol, December 1, 2007; 98(6): 3494 - 3504. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. M. Christie and G. L. Westbrook Lateral excitation within the olfactory bulb. J. Neurosci., February 22, 2006; 26(8): 2269 - 2277. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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