Hippocampal mossy fibre boutons as dynamical synapses

In this work the consequences on the activity of CA3 pyramidal neurons of the dynamic properties (facilitation and depression) associated with hippocampal mossy fibre boutons are explored; namely, a study is carried on the dependence of the pyramidal cell activity with the input stimulus frequency to the mossy fibre boutons as well as the influence of the single vesicle post-synaptic response magnitude on this dependence. We calculate tuning curves for the mossy fibre boutons excitatory post-synaptic potentials as a function of pre-synaptic frequency and we show how this property, together with channels that contribute to spike frequency adaptation, makes the activity of CA3 pyramidal neurons strongly dependent on the temporal patterns of mossy fibres pre-synaptic signals. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.