Spatio-temporal summation of synaptic activity in visual cortical pyramidal cells in vitro

Functional Topography of Converging Visual and Auditory Inputs to Neurons in the Rat Superior Colliculus

We have used a slice preparation of the infant rat midbrain to examine converging inputs onto neurons in the deeper multisensory layers of the superior colliculus (dSC). Electrical stimulation of the superficial visual layers (sSC) and of the auditory nucleus of the brachium of the inferior colliculus (nBIC) evoked robust monosynaptic responses in dSC cells. Furthermore, the inputs from the sSC were found to be topographically organized as early as the second postnatal week and thus before opening of the eyes and ear canals. This precocious topography was found to be sculpted by GABAA-mediated inhibition of a more widespread set of connections. Tracer injections in the nBIC, both in coronal slices as well as in hemisected brains, confirmed a robust projection originating in the nBIC with distinct terminals in the proximity of the cell bodies of dSC neurons. Combined stimulation of the sSC and nBIC sites revealed that the presumptive visual and auditory inputs are summed linearly. Finally, whereas either input on its own could manifest a significant degree of paired-pulse facilitation, temporally offset stimulation of the two sites revealed no synaptic interactions, indicating again that the two inputs function independently. Taken together, these data provide the first detailed intracellular analysis of convergent sensory inputs onto dSC neurons and form the basis for further exploration of multisensory integration and developmental plasticity.

Response attenuation during coincident afferent excitatory inputs

The linearity of the synaptic summation of two unitary excitatory synaptic events was investigated during whole cell recordings from retinal target neurons in an eye-attached isolated brain stem preparation. Pairs of unitary excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) were evoked by bipolar stimulation electrodes that were directed to two distinct foci on the retinal surface based on the visual receptive field boundaries. The interval between stimulation of each retinal site was incremented by 0.5-1 ms to quantify the time course of nonlinear summation using an exponential fit. Response facilitation was never observed; however, the coincident arrival of synaptic inputs caused a response attenuation in 26 of the 37 pairs studied. Twelve of the 26 pairs had time constants of their attenuation that were similar to the time constants of the decaying phases of the first EPSPs of each pair. This suggests that the attenuation of these 12 pairs may be entirely due to voltage-dependent mechanisms, such as a reduction in driving force or a change of the activity of voltage-sensitive channels. On the other hand, the 14 other pairs had their time constant of attenuation shorter than the time constants of the decaying phase of the first EPSP. In fact, the attenuation time constants were often closer to the time constants of the decaying phases of the first excitatory postsynaptic currents of each pair. This finding suggests that the attenuation of these 14 pairs involve a shunting mechanism due to the opening of synaptic channels. The presence of this conductance-dependent mechanism is supported by the finding of asymmetric effects on the time course of attenuation when the stimulation sequence was reversed. These results are discussed in terms of the processing by neurons of coincident excitatory inputs onto spatially distinct points of their dendritic trees.