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The tetanus patterns for the induction of long--term depression in the adult rat hippocampus

Chen Li, Jiang Mali, Han Taizhen

Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Xi'an Jiaotong University School of Medicine.Xi'an 710061,Shaanxi

Abstract

Previous reports suggested that a low frequency stimulus (LFS) of 1--2 Hz (600~900 pulses) induced a homosynaptic long-term depression (LTD) of synaptic efficacy in the hippocampal CA1 area of young rats (< 4-weeks). However, these stimulation protocols often failed to induce LTD in the adult CA1 hippocampus. In the present study, we examined the effect of two novel tetanus patterns on LTD induction in adult rat hippocampal slices. We determined that these novel stimulus protocols induced LTD in the adult hippocampus, and that the LTD induction characteristics were parameter-specific, including latency (period from the end of tetanus to a beginning of LTD) and the magnitude of LTD. These results suggest that low-frequency stimuli with certain patterns can induce LTD in the CA1 area of adult hippocampal slices, and that the multi-trains at 2-Hz protocol provided more efficacious response than the 5-Hz protocol.

Key words: Hippocampus;long-term depression;synaptic plasticity

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Citing This Article：

Chen Li, Jiang Mali, Han Taizhen. The tetanus patterns for the induction of long--term depression in the adult rat hippocampus. Acta Physiol Sin 2006; 58 (3): (in Chinese with English abstract).