Reliability of Synaptic Transmission at the Synapses of Held In Vivo under Acoustic Stimulation Export

@article{citeulike:5900506, abstract = {Background The giant synapses of Held play an important role in high-fidelity auditory processing and provide a model system for synaptic transmission at central synapses. Whether transmission of action potentials can fail at these synapses has been investigated in recent studies. At the endbulbs of Held in the anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) a consistent picture emerged, whereas at the calyx of Held in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) results on the reliability of transmission remain inconsistent. In vivo this discrepancy could be due to the difficulty in identifying failures of transmission. Methods/Findings We introduce a novel method for detecting unreliable transmission in vivo. Based on the temporal relationship between a cells' waveform and other potentials in the recordings, a statistical test is developed that provides a balanced decision between the presence and the absence of failures. Its performance is quantified using simulated voltage recordings and found to exhibit a high level of accuracy. The method was applied to extracellular recordings from the synapses of Held in vivo. At the calyces of Held failures of transmission were found only rarely. By contrast, at the endbulbs of Held in the AVCN failures were found under spontaneous, excited, and suppressed conditions. In accordance with previous studies, failures occurred most abundantly in the suppressed condition, suggesting a role for inhibition. Conclusions/Significance Under the investigated activity conditions/anesthesia, transmission seems to remain largely unimpeded in the MNTB, whereas in the AVCN the occurrence of failures is related to inhibition and could be the basis/result of computational mechanisms for temporal processing. More generally, our approach provides a formal tool for studying the reliability of transmission with high statistical accuracy under typical in vivo recording conditions.}, author = {Englitz, Bernhard and Tolnai, Sandra and Typlt, Marei and Jost, J\"{u}rgen and R\"{u}bsamen, Rudolf}, citeulike-article-id = {5900506}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0007014}, day = {2}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0007014}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, keywords = {avcn, calyx, endbulb, held, mntb, synapse}, month = {October}, number = {10}, pages = {e7014+}, posted-at = {2009-10-06 18:37:41}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {Reliability of Synaptic Transmission at the Synapses of Held In Vivo under Acoustic Stimulation}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0007014}, volume = {4}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5900506 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5900506 N2 - Background The giant synapses of Held play an important role in high-fidelity auditory processing and provide a model system for synaptic transmission at central synapses. Whether transmission of action potentials can fail at these synapses has been investigated in recent studies. At the endbulbs of Held in the anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) a consistent picture emerged, whereas at the calyx of Held in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) results on the reliability of transmission remain inconsistent. In vivo this discrepancy could be due to the difficulty in identifying failures of transmission. Methods/Findings We introduce a novel method for detecting unreliable transmission in vivo. Based on the temporal relationship between a cells' waveform and other potentials in the recordings, a statistical test is developed that provides a balanced decision between the presence and the absence of failures. Its performance is quantified using simulated voltage recordings and found to exhibit a high level of accuracy. The method was applied to extracellular recordings from the synapses of Held in vivo. At the calyces of Held failures of transmission were found only rarely. By contrast, at the endbulbs of Held in the AVCN failures were found under spontaneous, excited, and suppressed conditions. In accordance with previous studies, failures occurred most abundantly in the suppressed condition, suggesting a role for inhibition. Conclusions/Significance Under the investigated activity conditions/anesthesia, transmission seems to remain largely unimpeded in the MNTB, whereas in the AVCN the occurrence of failures is related to inhibition and could be the basis/result of computational mechanisms for temporal processing. More generally, our approach provides a formal tool for studying the reliability of transmission with high statistical accuracy under typical in vivo recording conditions. IS - 10 JF - PLoS ONE TI - Reliability of Synaptic Transmission at the Synapses of Held In Vivo under Acoustic Stimulation PB - Public Library of Science VL - 4 SP - e7014 KW - avcn KW - calyx KW - endbulb KW - held KW - mntb KW - synapse AU - Englitz, Bernhard AU - Tolnai, Sandra AU - Typlt, Marei AU - Jost, Jürgen AU - Rübsamen, Rudolf PY - 2009/10/02/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0007014 ER -