Noradrenergic 'Tone' Determines Dichotomous Control of Cortical Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity

作者：Salgado Humberto; Koehr Georg; Trevino Mario^*

来源：Scientific Reports, 2012, 2(1): 417.

DOI：10.1038/srep00417

Norepinephrine (NE) is widely distributed throughout the brain. It modulates intrinsic currents, as well as amplitude and frequency of synaptic transmission affecting the 'signal-to-noise ratio' of sensory responses. In the visual cortex, alpha(1)- and beta-adrenergic receptors (AR) gate opposing effects on long-term plasticity of excitatory transmission. Whether and how NE recruits these plastic mechanisms is not clear. Here, we show that NE modulates glutamatergic inputs with different efficacies for alpha(1)- and beta-AR. As a consequence, the priming of synapses with different NE concentrations produces dose-dependent competing effects that determine the temporal window of spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP). While a low NE concentration leads to long-term depression (LTD) over broad positive and negative delays, a high NE concentration results in bidirectional STDP restricted to very narrow intervals. These results indicate that the local availability of NE, released during emotional arousal, determines the compound modulatory effect and the output of STDP.

• 出版日期2012-5-23
• 单位河北医科大学