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RESEARCH-ARTICLE

Modulation of Intrinsic Spiking in Spinal Cord Neurons

Department of Physiology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Submitted 18 March 2009; accepted in final form 11 August 2009

ABSTRACT

The vertebrate spinal cord is equipped with a number of neuronal networks that underlie repetitive patterns of behavior as locomotion. Activity in such networks is mediated not only by intrinsic cellular properties but also by synaptic coupling. In this study, we focused on the modulation of the intrinsic activity by 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, serotonin) and the cholinergic agonist muscarine in spinal cord cultures (embryonic age 14 rats). We investigated theses cultures (slices and dissociated cells) at the network level using multielectrode arrays (MEAs) and at the cellular level using whole cell patch clamp. All cultures showed bursting network activity and intrinsic activity when -aminobutyric acid, glycine, and glutamate transmission was blocked. Using MEAs, we observed an increase of the intrinsic activity in the ventral part of the slices with 5-HT and muscarine. In single-cell recordings we found that 43 and 35% of the cells that were silent in the absence of fast synaptic activity were transformed into intrinsically spiking cells by 5-HT and muscarine, respectively. We tested the hypothesis that these neuromodulators act via modulation of the persistent sodium currents (I_NaP) in these neurons. We found that 5-HT increased threefold the amplitude of I_NaP, specifically in the nonintrinsically spiking cells, and thus switched these cells into intrinsically spiking cells via activation of 5-HT₂ receptor and the phospholipase C pathway. In contrast, the effect of muscarine on nonintrinsically spiking neurons seems to be independent of I_NaP. We conclude from these findings that serotoninergic and cholinergic modulation can turn silent into spontaneously spiking neurons and thus initiate new sources of activity for rhythm generation in spinal networks.