Dendritic sodium spikes are required for long-term potentiation at distal synapses on hippocampal pyramidal neurons
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
Abstract
Dendritic integration of synaptic inputs mediates rapid neural computation as well as longer-lasting plasticity. Several channel types can mediate dendritically initiated spikes (dSpikes), which may impact information processing and storage across multiple timescales; however, the roles of different channels in the rapid versus long-term effects of dSpikes are unknown. We show here that dSpikes mediated by Nav channels (blocked by a low concentration of TTX) are required for long-term potentiation (LTP) in the distal apical dendrites of hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Furthermore, imaging, simulations, and buffering experiments all support a model whereby fast Nav channel-mediated dSpikes (Na-dSpikes) contribute to LTP induction by promoting large, transient, localized increases in intracellular calcium concentration near the calcium-conducting pores of NMDAR and L-type Cav channels. Thus, in addition to contributing to rapid neural processing, Na-dSpikes are likely to contribute to memory formation via their role in long-lasting synaptic plasticity.
Article and author information
Author details
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal procedures were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committees 591 at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus and Northwestern University.
Copyright
© 2015, Kim et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Dendritic sodium spikes are required for long-term potentiation at distal synapses on hippocampal pyramidal neurons
eLife 4:e06414.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06414
