Selective reduction by dopamine of excitatory synaptic inputs to pyramidal neurons in primate prefrontal cortex |
| |
| Authors: | Nathaniel N Urban Guillermo González-Burgos Darrell A Henze David A Lewis† German Barrionuevo† |
| |
| Institution: | Departments of Neuroscience,University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA;Departments of Psychiatry and Center for Neural Basis of Cognition, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | We have employed in vitro physiological methods to investigate dopaminergic modulation of excitatory synaptic transmission in monkey prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuits. We show that combined activation of D1-like and D2-like dopamine receptors results in the reduction of extracellular stimulation-evoked isolated EPSCs in layer 3 pyramidal neurons. Using paired recordings from synaptically connected pyramidal neurons we have determined the basic properties of unitary synaptic connections between layer 3 pyramids in the primate PFC and, interestingly, we found that dopamine does not reduce synaptic transmission between nearby pairs of synaptically coupled PFC pyramidal neurons. This input specificity may be a critical aspect of the dopaminergic regulation of recurrent excitatory circuits in the PFC. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
