Electrophysiology - Slice

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The slice electrophysiology group investigates how mutations in genes, coding for proteins that anchor and stabilize NMDA receptors in the membrane, influence synaptic plasticity in thin slices of the hippocampus. In particular, we record electrical potentials from these slices and explore how their amplitude changes following complex stimulation patterns. An example of such an experiment is illustrated in Figure 1 below.

In Figure 1 above, a thin (350 micro;m thick) slice of the hippocampus rests on top of a multi-electrode array containing 60 electrodes. Field excitatory post-synaptic potentials (fEPSPs) are recorded by several electrodes, including the electrode marked by the yellow dot. fEPSPs can be evoked in that electrode by stimulation of either the electrode marked by the red arrow or the electrode marked by the green arrow.

Throughout the experiment, the green (control) pathway is undergoing only baseline submaximal stimulation at 0.02 Hz, whereas the red (test) pathway is at some point tetanised by two trains of 100 Hz stimulation at 1.5x baseline stimulus strength.

Following the tetanus, the original baseline stimulation evokes consistently larger responses in the test pathway (as shown in the overlaid baseline and post-tetanic fEPSP traces), whereas the amplitude of the fEPSP in the control, non-tetanised pathway stays the same, ruling out non-specific changes in the slice excitability. Figure 2 (below) illustrates averaged data from 10 similar experiments in the CA1 area of the hippocampus of 129 GP a/a (S5) mice.

Electrophysiological data obtained from slices are a key component of our Database