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The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 82 No. 4 October 1999, pp. 1843-1854
Copyright ©1999 by the American Physiological Society
Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie, Département de Physiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université Laval, Québec G1K 7P4, Canada
Martina, Marzia,
Sébastien Royer, and
Denis Paré.
Physiological Properties of Central Medial and Central Lateral
Amygdala Neurons. J. Neurophysiol. 82: 1843-1854, 1999. Mounting evidence implicates the central (CE)
nucleus of the amygdala in the mediation of classically conditioned
fear responses. However, little data are available regarding the
intrinsic membrane properties of CE amygdala neurons. Here, we
characterized the physiological properties of CE medial
(CEM) and CE lateral (CEL) amygdala neurons
using whole cell recordings in brain slices maintained in vitro.
Several classes of CE neurons were distinguished on the basis of their
physiological properties. Most CEM cells (95%), here
termed "late-firing neurons," displayed a marked voltage- and
time-dependent outward rectification in the depolarizing direction. This phenomenon was associated with a conspicuous delay between the
onset of depolarizing current pulses and the first action potential.
During this delay, the membrane potential
(Vm) depolarized slowly, the steepness of
this depolarizing ramp increasing as the prepulse
Vm was hyperpolarized from 
60 to 90 mV.
Low extracellular concentrations of 4-aminopyridine (30 µM)
reversibly abolished the outward rectification and the delay to firing.
Late-firing CEM neurons displayed a continuum of repetitive
firing properties with cells generating single spikes at one pole and
high-frequency (
90 Hz) spike bursts at the other. In contrast, only
56% of CEL cells displayed the late-firing behavior
prevalent among CEM neurons. Moreover, these
CEL neurons only generated single spikes in response to
membrane depolarization. A second major class of CEL cells (38%) lacked the characteristic delay to firing observed in
CEM cells, generated single spikes in response to membrane
depolarization, and displayed various degrees of inward rectification
in the hyperpolarizing direction. In both regions of the CE nucleus,
two additional cell types were encountered infrequently (
6% of our
samples). One type of neurons, termed "low-threshold bursting
cells" had a behavior reminiscent of thalamocortical neurons. The
second type of cells, called "fast-spiking cells," generated brief
action potentials at high rates with little spike frequency adaptation
in response to depolarizing current pulses. These findings indicate
that the CE nucleus contains several types of neurons endowed with
distinct physiological properties. Moreover, these various cell types
are not distributed uniformly in the medial and lateral sector of the
CE nucleus. This heterogeneity parallels anatomic data indicating that
these subnuclei are part of different circuits.
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