The role of short-term synaptic plasticity in neuronal microcircuit [Elektronische Ressource] / Jin Bao

The role of short-term synapticplasticity in neuronalmicrocircuitJin Baoborn in Hefei, ChinaBiology FacultyGeorg-August-University G ottingenA thesis submitted for the degree ofPhilosophi Doctor (PhD)2010G ottingen1. Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Erwin Neher2. Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Ralf HeinrichDay of the defense: 08.07.2010iiAbstractNeuronal microcircuit is built by neurons connected with dynamicsynapses. Short-term synaptic plasticity is one form of the synapticdynamics, which plays various roles in the circuit information process-ing and computation. To analyze the function of short-term synapticplasticity in feed-forward inhibitory (FFI) circuits, electrophysiologi-cal experiments on acute mice brain slices and computational modelsimulations have been applied. Feed-forward inhibitory circuit is com-posed of an excitatory input synapse, an interneuron and an inhibitoryoutput synapse. Two cerebellar FFI circuits (basket cell mediatingsomatic FFI and stellate cell mediating dendritic FFI) have been an-alyzed in parallel in this work to compare their input/output synapticdynamics, the intrinsic ring property of interneurons and the circuitoutput dynamics.