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Loss of paired‐pulse facilitation at the corticostriatal synapse of the aged rat
Author(s) -
Walsh John P.,
Ou Xiaorong
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
synapse
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.809
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1098-2396
pISSN - 0887-4476
DOI - 10.1002/syn.890170105
Subject(s) - facilitation , synapse , neuroscience , neural facilitation , stimulation , synaptic augmentation , synaptic fatigue , synaptic plasticity , corpus callosum , pulse (music) , biology , chemistry , psychology , excitatory postsynaptic potential , physics , receptor , inhibitory postsynaptic potential , biochemistry , detector , optics
Changes in calcium (Ca 2+ ) homeostasis have been proposed to contribute to the aging process. Paired‐pulse facilitation, a form of synaptic enhancement that relies upon an accumulation of Ca 2+ in the presynaptic terminal, was used to examine the effect of aging at the corticostriatal synapse. Intracellular recordings in striatal neurons from young rats demonstrated a consistent enhancement in the second of two synaptic responses evoked by stimulation of the corpus callosum. In contrast, neurons from aged rats showed a consistent depression of the second synaptic response at identical pairing intervals. These differences were not explained by an age‐dependent increase in synaptic depression and demonstrate an alteration in the Ca 2+ ‐mediated process of presynaptic facilitation. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.