论文部分内容阅读
Objective In rodents, the hippocampus has been studied extensively as a part of the brain system responsible for behavioral inhibition and attention, spatial memory, and navigation.Many studies suggested that interneurons play an important role in hippocampal network, Some interneurons demonstrate persistent firing after repeated somatic current injections.Little was known about electrophysiology and morphology properties of this kind of interneurons.Methods A transgenic mouse that expresses EGFP driven by the glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD67) promoter was used to identify interneurons in brain slice.We performed whole cell recordings from interneurons in the radiatum layer and lacunosum molecular layer of hippocampal CA1 area to detect their firing patterns.Results In about 20% of the EGFP-positive interneurons, repeated somatic current injections eventually triggered persistent firing that outlasted the current injection by seconds or minutes.Right before the persistent spikes came up, the threshold potential decreased gradually.Also, the persistent spikes had a very low threshold potential.Voltage clamp recording showed higher probability of EPSCs in the persistent firing interneurons.The morphology of these interneurons also indicated a great amount of connections with around cells.Conclusion This kind of interneurons having persistent firing pattern may play an important role in hippocampal network.