Premium
Selective reduction by dopamine of excitatory synaptic inputs to pyramidal neurons in primate prefrontal cortex
Author(s) -
Urban Nathaniel N.,
GonzálezBurgos Guillermo,
Henze Darrell A.,
Lewis David A.,
Barrionuevo German
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2001.015024
Subject(s) - excitatory postsynaptic potential , neuroscience , dopaminergic , dopamine , neurotransmission , prefrontal cortex , pyramidal cell , chemistry , biology , inhibitory postsynaptic potential , receptor , hippocampus , biochemistry , cognition
We have employed in vitro physiological methods to investigate dopaminergic modulation of excitatory synaptic transmission in monkey prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuits. We show that combined activation of D1‐like and D2‐like dopamine receptors results in the reduction of extracellular stimulation‐evoked isolated EPSCs in layer 3 pyramidal neurons. Using paired recordings from synaptically connected pyramidal neurons we have determined the basic properties of unitary synaptic connections between layer 3 pyramids in the primate PFC and, interestingly, we found that dopamine does not reduce synaptic transmission between nearby pairs of synaptically coupled PFC pyramidal neurons. This input specificity may be a critical aspect of the dopaminergic regulation of recurrent excitatory circuits in the PFC.