Publication Date:
1997-10-23
Description:
The site of impulse initiation is crucial for the integrative actions of mammalian central neurons, but this question is currently controversial. Some recent studies support classical evidence that the impulse always arises in the soma-axon hillock region, with back-propagation through excitable dendrites, whereas others indicate that the dendrites are sufficiently excitable to initiate impulses that propagate forward along the dendrite to the soma-axon hillock. This issue has been addressed in the olfactory mitral cell, in which excitatory synaptic input is restricted to the distal tuft of a single primary dendrite. In rat olfactory bulb slices, dual whole cell recordings were made at or near the soma and from distal sites on the primary dendrite. The results show that the impulse can be initiated in either the soma-axon hillock or in the distal primary dendrite, and that the initiation site is controlled physiologically by the excitatory synaptic inputs to the distal tuft and inhibitory synaptic inputs near the soma.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Chen, W R -- Midtgaard, J -- Shepherd, G M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1997 Oct 17;278(5337):463-7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Section of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9334305" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Action Potentials
;
Animals
;
Dendrites/*physiology
;
Electric Stimulation
;
Evoked Potentials
;
Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials
;
In Vitro Techniques
;
Olfactory Bulb/*cytology/physiology
;
Patch-Clamp Techniques
;
Pyramidal Cells/*physiology
;
Rats
;
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
;
Synapses/*physiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
