PRESYNAPTIC MECHANISMS OF SOME NEURONAL PLASTICITIES

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Our long-term objective is to define electrophysiological and biophysical mechanisms which are responsible for the presynaptic plasticities of facilitation, augmentation, post-tetanic potentiation and long-term potentiation. All of these homosynaptic plasticides will be examined using the crayfish opener excitor neuron whose nerve terminals can be doubly penetrated a fraction of a space constant away from transmitter release sites whose evoked and spontaneous release can be recorded from large, identified postsynaptic muscle cells. Using this preparation, we propose to examine whether increases in calcium currents, decreases in several potassium conductances, and/or increases in internal calcium or sodium concentrations contribute to any or all of these homosynaptic plasticides. Electrophysiological and biophysical paradigms have been carefully designed to measure each of these ionic properties. Given the conservative evolution of many other cellular/molecular mechanisms (including axonal conduction and synaptic transmission), cellular/molecular mechanisms of these synaptic plasticities found at crayfish opener excitor synapses will almost certainly be found at mammalian synapses (including humans). Such knowledge is important because the synaptic plasticities of facilitation, augmentation, and post-tetanic potentiation are probably responsible for such behavioral phenomena as arousal and sensitization, whereas long-term potentiation may be the neuronal basis for learning and memory.