Author
Listed:
- Ping Liu
(University of Connecticut Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-3401, USA)
- Bojun Chen
(University of Connecticut Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-3401, USA)
- Zhao-Wen Wang
(University of Connecticut Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-3401, USA)
Abstract
Nematode neurons generally produce graded potentials instead of action potentials. It is unclear how the graded potentials control postsynaptic cells under physiological conditions. Here we show that postsynaptic currents frequently occur in bursts at the neuromuscular junction of Caenorhabditis elegans. Cholinergic bursts concur with facilitated action potential firing, elevated cytosolic [Ca2+] and contraction of the muscle whereas GABAergic bursts suppress action potential firing. The bursts, distinct from artificially evoked responses, are characterized by a persistent current (the primary component of burst-associated charge transfer) and increased frequency and mean amplitude of postsynaptic current events. The persistent current of cholinergic postsynaptic current bursts is mostly mediated by levamisole-sensitive acetylcholine receptors, which correlates well with locomotory phenotypes of receptor mutants. Eliminating command interneurons abolishes the bursts whereas mutating SLO-1 K+ channel, a potent presynaptic inhibitor of exocytosis, greatly increases the mean burst duration. These observations suggest that motoneurons control muscle by producing postsynaptic current bursts.
Suggested Citation
Ping Liu & Bojun Chen & Zhao-Wen Wang, 2013.
"Postsynaptic current bursts instruct action potential firing at a graded synapse,"
Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-12, October.
Handle:
RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2925
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2925
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2925. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.