Regulation of spike timing-dependent plasticity of olfactory inputs in mitral cells in the rat olfactory bulb

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 7; no. 4; p. e35001
• Main Authors: Ma, Teng-Fei, Zhao, Xiao-Lei, Cai, Lei, Zhang, Nan, Ren, Si-Qiang, Ji, Fang, Tian, Tian, Lu, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 19.04.2012; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Action Potentials; Animals; Biology; Electric Stimulation; Excitation; Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials; Firing pattern; GABA Agonists - pharmacology; GABA Antagonists - pharmacology; GABAergic Neurons - drug effects; GABAergic Neurons - physiology; Granule cells; In Vitro Techniques; Information processing; Inhibition; International markets; Isonicotinic Acids - pharmacology; Laboratories; Lymphocytes; Medicine; Mitral cells; Neural Inhibition; Neurobiology; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Neurons - physiology; Neurosciences; Odors; Olfactory bulb; Olfactory Bulb - cytology; Olfactory Bulb - drug effects; Olfactory Bulb - physiology; Olfactory nerve; Olfactory Nerve - physiology; Olfactory stimuli; Physiology; Plasticity; Propagation; Pyridazines - pharmacology; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Regulations; Smell; Synaptic plasticity; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035001

The recent history of activity input onto granule cells (GCs) in the main olfactory bulb can affect the strength of lateral inhibition, which functions to generate contrast enhancement. However, at the plasticity level, it is unknown whether and how the prior modification of lateral inhibition modulates the subsequent induction of long-lasting changes of the excitatory olfactory nerve (ON) inputs to mitral cells (MCs). Here we found that the repetitive stimulation of two distinct excitatory inputs to the GCs induced a persistent modification of lateral inhibition in MCs in opposing directions. This bidirectional modification of inhibitory inputs differentially regulated the subsequent synaptic plasticity of the excitatory ON inputs to the MCs, which was induced by the repetitive pairing of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) with postsynaptic bursts. The regulation of spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) was achieved by the regulation of the inter-spike-interval (ISI) of the postsynaptic bursts. This novel form of inhibition-dependent regulation of plasticity may contribute to the encoding or processing of olfactory information in the olfactory bulb.