Publication Date:
1982-03-12
Description:
Brief tetanic stimulation of the preganglionic nerves to the superior cervical ganglion enhances the postganglionic response to single preganglionic stimuli for 1 to 3 hours. This long-term potentiation of transmission through the ganglion is apparently not attributable to a persistent muscarinic action of the preganglionic neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, since neither the magnitude nor the time course of the phenomenon is reduced by atropine. The decay of long-term potentiation can be described by a first-order kinetic process with a mean time constant of 80 minutes. We conclude that long-term potentiation, once considered a unique property of the hippocampus, is in fact a more general feature of synaptic function. This form of synaptic memory may significantly influence information processing and control in other regions of the nervous system, including autonomic ganglia.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Brown, T H -- McAfee, D A -- 12116/PHS HHS/ -- NS 16576/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1982 Mar 12;215(4538):1411-3.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6278593" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Ganglia, Sympathetic/*physiology
;
Kinetics
;
Learning/*physiology
;
Neuronal Plasticity
;
Rats
;
Synapses/*physiology
;
*Synaptic Transmission
;
Time Factors
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
