The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 80 No. 6 December 1998, pp. 3214-3232
Copyright ©1998 The American Physiological Society

Distal Versus Proximal Inhibitory Shaping of Feedback Excitation in the Electrosensory Lateral Line Lobe: Implications for Sensory Filtering

Neil J. Berman and Leonard Maler

Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 8M5, Canada

Berman, Neil J. and Leonard Maler. Distal versus proximal inhibitory shaping of feedback excitation in the electrosensory lateral line lobe: implications for sensory filtering. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 3214-3232, 1998. The inhibition controlling the indirect descending feedback (parallel fibers originating from cerebellar granule cells in the eminentia posterior pars granularis) to electrosensory lateral line lobe (ELL) pyramidal cells was studied using intracellular recording techniques in vitro. Parallel fibers (PF) contact stellate cells and dendrites of ventral molecular layer (VML) GABAergic interneurons. Stellate cells provide local input to pyramidal cell distal dendrites, whereas VML cells contact their somata and proximal dendrites. Single-pulse stimulation of PF evoked graded excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) that were blocked by -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists. The EPSPs peaked at 6.4 ± 1.8 ms (mean ± SE; n = 11) but took >50 ms to decay completely. Tetanic stimulation (100 ms, 100 Hz) produced a depolarizing wave with individual EPSPs superimposed. The absolute amplitude of the individual EPSPs decreased during the train. Spike rates, established by injected current, mostly were increased, but in some cells were decreased, by tetanic stimulation. Global application of a -aminobutyric acid-A (GABA_A) antagonist to the recorded cell's soma and apical dendritic region increased the EPSP peak and decay phase amplitudes. Tetanic stimulation always increased current-evoked spike rates after GABA_A blockade during, and for several hundred milliseconds after, the stimulus. Application of a GABA_B antagonist did not have any significant effects on the PF-evoked response. This, and the lack of any long hyperpolarizing inhibitory postsynaptic potentials, suggests that VML and stellate cell inhibition does not involve GABA_B receptors. Focal GABA_A antagonist applications to the dorsal molecular layer (DML) and pyramidal cell layer (PCL) had contrasting effects on PF-evoked EPSPs. DML GABA_A blockade significantly increased the EPSP peak amplitude but not the decay phase of the EPSP, whereas PCL GABA_A-blockade significantly increased the decay phase, but not the EPSP peak, amplitude. The order of antagonist application did not affect the outcome. On the basis of the known circuitry of the ELL, we conclude that the distal inhibition originated from GABAergic molecular layer stellate cells and the proximal inhibition originated from GABAergic cells of the ventral molecular layer (VML cells). Computer modeling of distal and proximal inhibition suggests that intrinsic differences in IPSP dynamics between the distal and proximal sites may be amplified by voltage-dependent NMDA receptor and persistent sodium currents. We propose that the different time courses of stellate cell and VML cell inhibition allows them to act as low- and high-pass filters respectively on indirect descending feedback to ELL pyramidal cells.

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