L4 Electrical synapse
10 important questions on L4 Electrical synapse
Which extracellular space (synaptic cleft) between the pre- and postsynaptic neuron is smaller, in Electrical or chemical synapses?
What are NOT a feature of electrical synapses?
1. Electrical synapses act as a low-pass filters
2. Synaptic integration across gap-junctions is additive, and thus linear
3. Electrical synapses decouple neural activity across population of neurons
4. Opening of gap-junctions cannot be regulated by ligands
5. The electrical synapse is plastic and undergoes activity dependent plasticity.
2, 3, 4
Features:
1, 5, (opening of gap-junctions can be regulated by ligands??)
Both in electrically coupled neurons and neurons that communicate through chemical neurotransmission
................ channels mediate generation of action potentials.
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Are membrane capacitance and frequency of membrane oscillations across electrically coupled neurons positively correlated?
Via what structure is electrical communication mediated ?
And what does this structure consist of?
- Gap junction channels which are composed of pairs of hemichannels
- Each hemichannel consists of a hexametric complex of connexions.
- mammals have 20 different types of connexions
- the hemichannels can be homomeric or heteromeric
- two hemichannels with the same or different connexion composition can form gap-junctions: Homotypic vs heterotypic gap junctions.
Direct electrical coupling between neurons
How are electrical synapses studied, and how can you test for coupled neurons (via gap junctions) ?
if the direct sub threshold somatic current injections in one neuron changes the membrane potential in the other, the two neurons are thought to be coupled via gap-junctions
Gap-junction mediated coupling is first shown between electrically coupled inhibitory neurons.
Which kind of communication electrical or chemical, is faster and has less failure rates?
Why do electrical synapses work as low-pass filters?
What is supralinear synaptic integration (in relation to spike generation)?
If dendritic integration is supralinear, two groups of inputs are needed to activate a compartment, and a single compartment can trigger a spike. If dendritic integration is sublinear, a single input can activate the dendritic compartment and the two compartments must be active to trigger a spike.
Do synchronised oscillations require chemical synaptic transmission or actions potentials?
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