Synaptic Efficacy as a Function of Ionotropic Receptor Distribution: A Computational Study

Glutamatergic synapses are the most prevalent functional elements of information processing in the brain. Changes in pre-synaptic activity and in the function of various post-synaptic elements contribute to generate a large variety of synaptic responses. Previous studies have explored postsynaptic f...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-10, Vol.10 (10), p.e0140333-e0140333
Main Authors: Allam, Sushmita L, Bouteiller, Jean-Marie C, Hu, Eric Y, Ambert, Nicolas, Greget, Renaud, Bischoff, Serge, Baudry, Michel, Berger, Theodore W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biomedical engineering
Brain
Computation
Computational neuroscience
Computer Simulation
Data processing
Effectiveness
Engineering
Geometry
Glutamate
Glutamatergic transmission
Glutamic Acid - metabolism
Hippocampus
Hippocampus - metabolism
Humans
Influence
Information processing
Ion channels (ligand-gated)
Localization
Models, Neurological
Nervous system
Neurons
Paired-pulse stimulation
Receptors
Receptors, AMPA - metabolism
Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate - metabolism
Rodents
Synapses
Synapses - physiology
Synaptic strength
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Glutamatergic synapses are the most prevalent functional elements of information processing in the brain. Changes in pre-synaptic activity and in the function of various post-synaptic elements contribute to generate a large variety of synaptic responses. Previous studies have explored postsynaptic factors responsible for regulating synaptic strength variations, but have given far less importance to synaptic geometry, and more specifically to the subcellular distribution of ionotropic receptors. We analyzed the functional effects resulting from changing the subsynaptic localization of ionotropic receptors by using a hippocampal synaptic computational framework. The present study was performed using the EONS (Elementary Objects of the Nervous System) synaptic modeling platform, which was specifically developed to explore the roles of subsynaptic elements as well as their interactions, and that of synaptic geometry. More specifically, we determined the effects of changing the localization of ionotropic receptors relative to the presynaptic glutamate release site, on synaptic efficacy and its variations following single pulse and paired-pulse stimulation protocols. The results indicate that changes in synaptic geometry do have consequences on synaptic efficacy and its dynamics.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0140333